4 AM

For some reason, I find myself waking up at 4 AM this morning and not able to go back to sleep. Here I am on LJ, trying to work out what's on my mind. It's hard to sort out certain thoughts and feelings. I remember waking up at times like these when I was living at my apartment, and I would go outside and take a walk to clear my head. The cold morning air has a way of making everything seem clearer. It puts everything into perspective. But I can't do that here. Not in Los Angeles.

Maybe it's just the loneliness waking me up. I smile and I say hello to it... but it doesn't seem to respond. It just stares at me from the darkness of my room. As I try to go back to sleep, it nags at me, keeping me awake. I tell it to go away and leave me alone... but it doesn't leave. It visits me sometimes, at the weirdest times, when I don't want to see it. That's how most unwanted friends are, anyway. "Okay, for now you can stay..." I tell it. No response, like I expected. I try my best to smile. "It's okay to be lonely sometimes, you know? Just like how some friends come visit when you don't want them to. Unexpected loneliness is the same way. You just have to make room in your life, accommodating it, accepting it until it goes away. Trying to throw it out will only make matters worse."  I think I say this more for myself, because loneliness doesn't respond at all. "It's not too bad with you here, as long as you don't take over my life."  And with that, I come to an unspoken agreement with that thing staring at me from the darkness. It will leave as soon as the sun comes up.

4 AM of another day goes as quickly as it came. I go back to bed, hoping I can salvage whatever time I have left to sleep.

Some plans for the future

My aunt made plans for me to fly over to New York next month to visit her for a few weeks. It's pretty exciting for me because I've never been to New York (or the east coast) before. Unfortunately, I'm going to miss Halloween here. On that day, I was planning to go with friends to Monster Massive, this gigantic trance party here in Los Angeles. I guess it's fine though. It's a rare chance for me to go to New York, and I can always go to Monster Massive next year.

So now I'm busy thinking up some plans on where I want to visit when I go. I'll probably visit Canada and DC if I get the chance. I also want to pay my respects to 9/11's ground zero. Finally, I want to try out the famous New York food... (is it really that good?)  There are other places I'd like to go, but I need to plan it out first. 

I guess after I come back from New York in November, I'll start actively looking for a job. After I graduated, I turned in my resume to a few places, but I never heard back from them. They all require experience, and i don't have any unfortunately... ^^;  Since my brother's autistic, my teacher recommended a job working with the mentally disabled. I think I'll give it a shot. I've been drifting towards that career path anyway. After that, I'll probably start working on my Masters... perhaps in research. My dream is to be able to work in Japan someday, but it's hard to say how things will turn out. At least for now, what's certain is that I'm going to New York.

Oh, in other news, I doubt I can reach JLPT level 3 by the end of this month. For now, I'm working on JLPT level 4. It always amazes me when I can read something in Japanese that I previously couldn't. I just need to learn to not get ahead of myself.

And to top off this somewhat random entry, here's a weird tree I found at my college awhile back. One side is made up of blossoms, while the other side is made up of green leaves. It made me wonder how a tree like this ended up where it was. Did someone do this intentionally? Or was this just a random act of nature?