Dinner with Mywa

I did my laundry today. It was very necessary since I didn’t have many clean clothes left. I did this in the morning and wasn’t really doing much at that time either. I haven’t talked to anyone that much really, and I’m not sure why. The only plan after that is to meet up with my friend that is leaving to San Francisco to live for the next few years.

I met up with her in the Ofuna area and I ended up being about 10 minutes late, but the reason being I was buying her a gift to take with her to America. I went there early, but it took me awhile to find what I was looking for. Anyways, we went to get some coffee and exchanged gifts. She wanted to say thank you to me because I had helped her with her Visa application and it passed this time after she couldn’t get it the first time. So I’m happy that I helped and it worked out well for her.

We then went to get dinner around 5:30pm. We went to an izakaya and stayed there for about 6 hours. That’s a long time to be there, but we had a good conversation.

I finally realized what some of my problems are. She was very blunt with telling me it.

Problem 1: it has to do with my Japanese. I make errors because I’m not careful to distinguish between verbs and adjectives. I learned that I don’t need to use particles when speaking. I still write like I’m in elementary school and my grammar is that way too. It could be because I’m learning from an elementary textbook, but that should stop.

I need to become more fluent and now I’m realizing it. I don’t want to turn out like the other foreigners here that can’t speak Japanese even though they’ve lived here for ages. That’s just something I wouldn’t be able to face when I go back to the U.S. it’s shameful I think, so I’ve got to get to work on that.

Problem 2: with my girlfriend situation. According to her, I’ve never had a real girlfriend because it’s never been longer than 1 year. I could understand what she was talking about too when she said that. It’s because of my priorities. My priorities are always above that of my partners and I think that’s why things never work out for me. She says that I don’t put up with other people and that’s why it doesn’t work. That’s true and I can’t deny it. I never realized it before until she brought it up, but it makes sense now that I know.

She thinks that I should get a girlfriend, but it will be very hard to get a girlfriend because I’m at the at the age where people are looking for serious relationships that last years and I’m not in a position to offer that since I’m leaving Japan in 8 months. But I could continue to keep the relationship if I go back to America because she believes that Japanese girls would do that with me.