What are you gonna bring back?

Hey, guys, what are you gonna bring back from Japan? What are you gonna bring back that won't pass from relevance in time, like just another video game or just another book in a manga series; what are you gonna bring back?

As I collected my Dancemania CDs, a compilation out of which many songs were imported into DDR, and my DDR games, for which I haven't yet bought the Japanese PS1 I need to play them (because they're rare, and I'd have to order it through Japanese Amazon), I realized that I probably wasn't going to listen to all of them. So I eventually stopped collecting them. I might go back and get DELUX 1 and DELUX 2, the only other two remaining that aren't in the annoying "nonstop megamix" form, but apart from that, I think I'm done. But the other thing is, I'm starting to get tired of DDR, too, and I'm curious about venturing into real dancing from now on, instead of making DDR steps to various songs I like. I don't think it was coming to Japan that shifted my interest from DDR, though.

But what kind of things will I bring back that will aid me in my future? (Haha, what kind of things will come back that'll hinder me in the future?) I've learned some stuff, yeah. Now what of it?

I haven't learned how to cook Japanese food from my host mother, who makes it so well. So as far as that goes, I guess I've slipped up on this part. I'll eventually need to cook anyway, and I might as well cook food that's good rather than the usual American food that I could barely stomach anymore before I left.

Oh, I went to McDonald's today. It was actually good and not too overbearing with the being unhealthy, except for the fries, which were business as usual. I might eat that bacon and lettuce burger again before I go.

Yeah, but what am I bringing back? Presents, yes, presents. And when another year's gone you'll need more presents, just probably not from Japan. Hey, how about presence? What kind of presence will I have when I come back? Probably a lighter, more silent one. No, probably a more shrewd one, eager to shout and be raucous in stark naked contrast to sound-naked Japan. But I'll be lighter for sure. I'm worried about how much weight I've lost, even if it's only 5 pounds, because people who know me would know that that's a little too much for lightweight me. But the physique you see isn't all that makes up my presence. What presence will I have, the brave Commodore Perry who opened a foreign shore to his interaction?

Something.

I know many things now, and I still have left to figure out what I now know that I didn't before. That's either a sign of having learned a hell of a lot, or of having learned nothing. But if I want to find out what I found out, I don't think I learned nothing, did I?

We'll find out. In the meantime it's time to start sending stuff that I don't need right now back, and carry the rest home on my two shoulders or wheel it on Japan's ridiculously complicated sidewalks. I should write about that. Well, somebody already has. It's not that interesting anyway as a singular case, but it indicates a larger trend. And now it's back to work for me.