T- 3 days

This is it. There is no turning back. I leave for Japan in three days, and a strange sense of calm has come over me. It feels like... acceptance. I have come to terms with death. I say this because usually, when I'm about to start something big, I can imagine what it will be like, and I know I'll be myself more or less in the end. But going to Japan is different. At the risk of sounding dramatic, I am going to die. I cannot imagine what it will be like in Japan, nor do I have any false notions that the sense of self I have at this moment is going to be preserved.
In movies, when a character is about to die, another character will ask, "Do you have any regrets?" Well, regret to me is just dwelling on the past, and I'd like to move forward. I've learned some lessons about friendships and the need to be strong and honest, and maybe if I ever come back from Japan, I'll demonstrate what I've learned from my past life.
I've learned one thing recently- I love working. I've been helping my sister with a project; it's repetitive work-building, stuffing, and closing 5,000 boxes, but it's fun. Really, it's no different from building a house or molecular biology: prepare, fill, count, clean up, repeat endlessly. Forever. As a side note, I'm struggling with an aversion to country music. It's just music, but for some reason the lyrics "I'd like to check you for ticks" and the song "I hate everything" really got to me. Clearly, my aversion is causing me suffering, so I'm working on it, but, alas, all Rome wasn't hell in a hand basket or something like that.

ps. thanks to fjordaan for the picture from flickr