My internet died. It's been a while since that happened, but for more than a month I was entirely without internet. Abd without phone.
So, during that time I couldn't come here. And when I got my connection back, I saw how many pictures had popped up on my watchlist and fled in a panic. For a while I dreaded coming to this site because it would mean having to deal with that, so I didn't, and the list got longer and longer. Today I erased it. I feel guilty, but it was either that or leave for good.

Now I can go back to appreciating and commenting on the new stuff that comes up.

I've never added a pic to my favourites without leaving a comment. Have you? If you like it enough to fav it it's not too much of an effort to tell the artist in words and not just by clicking a button.
When I came here after a long absence my pics got favourited more than 160 times but only got two new comments.

That's not actually what I wanted to say. I feel I have to appologize for being gone for so long. You see, I've had a terrible art-block for, well, years. Every now and then I managed to draw something but that happened more and more rarely. And so for a while I simply didn't feel like comming here.
When I came I was confronted with the ever growing list of pictures from the artists I'm watching. And if I like something I leave a comment. But I didn't feel like leaving comments, especially since my own creativity was pretty much dead. So I only ever looked at a few pic and left the rest for later. And the list grew longer and longer, making my visits to this site more and more scarce. In the end I didn't come here for weeks, dreading the long long list of unwatched pictures that awaited me.

So I've come to decide that if I ever want to return here fully I have to get rid of that list. And I will. I might leave a comment here and there but generally I will erase the pics from my watchlist uncommented. I hope you'll forgive me for that.

Lately I'm drawing again. I have mastered proportions and poses in a way I wasn't able to before and even though my colouring still sucks I have hope again. I'm not going to upload any of my new pics here, though, not even in the scraps gallery. I simply don't want to be accociated with them, not here.
Might be a while before I manage a normal picture again.

As I told you in my last journal, I've been in Japan for half a year, living with a hostfamily. Now the problem was that I don't speak that much Japanese, and while it was enough to get trough the classes at university and to handle most problems of every-day life, there were moments when I was just totally lost. In such moments, rather than atmitting that I didn't understand a word they told me, I just adopted the habbit of smiling and nodding when it seemed appropriate, hoping that they didn't expect me to say anything relevant in return. Most of the other German students handled such situations pretty much the same way. Which had it's downsides.
A friend of mine, for example, lived with a charming older couple that went to hiking-tours every weekend. She usually joined them, unless we had something else planned. So one day her hostmother said something with my name in it and my friend didn't understand, but it didn't seem very importand so she just smiled and nodded. A few days later she and I went to Takarazuka, went to the theater, and when we had dinner in a restaurant afterwards, she said: "I hope you don't have any plans for this weekend. I think I accidentially invited you for a hiking-tour tomorrow."
Another day we went to Teramachi to go shopping for books and were spotted by a woman on a bicycle. The woman stopped, waited untill we were close enough and then started a conversation. A very one-sided one I have to admit. It began with the usual "Where do you come from?" "What are you doing here?" "Oh, your Japanese is really good, where did you learn it?" (Really, you don't have to understand such questions, only have the answers memorized, because it's always the same. Ever. Single. Time.) After that, I was lost. Didn't understand a single word - to this day I have no idea what she was talking about, but I got the distinct feeling, then, that she wanted us to join a cult. But she didn't seem inclined to stop anytime soon and it seemed inpolite to interrupt, so I just looked interested and concentrated, nodded every once in a while and said "Oh, really?" and "Is that so?" whenever it seemed to make sense. From time to time I glanced at my friend and was quite frustrated to see that she actually seemed to understand everything.
After a while the woman drove off and when she was gone I admitted to my friend: "You know, it's depressing how bad my Japanese is: I didn't understand a single word, but whenever I looked at you, you seemed to understand everything just fine."
And she answered: "Funny. During the conversaton I ocassionally looked at you, and I was thinking exactly the same."

...I thought that I could finally write a new journal entry. And so I tried. And kept trying for two weeks. By now, right now, the moment I'm writing this, I'm pretty annoyed, but I have been even more annoyed before, and my being annoyed will reach its peak, I suppose, once DA kicked me out he moment I tried to post this.
Anyways. I had to finally write something new, because my returning from Japan was months ago. I just never could think of anything to write. Things have been so much easier when I was still in school.
Looking back it's hard to believe I have been gone for so long. Because the moment I returned to Germany it felt like I never left. Still, the five plus month spend in Japan were an experience I wouldn't have missed for anything. And I think it really did change me in a way. Either way, I would have loved to sit down after coming home and talk about nothing else for, like, six weeks. In the end I didn't, because no-one ever asked.
For short, in case anyone had been wondering what I was doing all the time I wasn't here (not that anyone would, I suppose):
In September I left for Japan where I and fife-teen others from my university would stay until February as exchange students at Dôshisha-University in Kyôto. Our group of six arrived almost two weeks early and until we moved in with our hostfamilies we stayed in a six-bed-room in a youth-hostel. It was fun, but I discovered (lie: I knew before) that I'm not a six-bed-room-person. I and my friend Jenny usually spend the nights in the corridor where there was a couch and a small table, and tried to translate Japanese novels on our notebooks, or read manga, and drank countless tin-cocktails while we ate our late-night snack we bought at the convenient-store nearby. The others slept.
My hostfamily lived in Kameoka, which is about 30-50 Minutes from Kyôto, depending on what train one gets. They had a store across the street, selling sweets (Lucky me!), which means I even got to see my hostfather from time to time. Pretty often, in fact. We both love science fiction and had a lot to talk about. My hostmother was great too, sweet and funny and a great cook (I SO miss her okonomiyaki!), and then there was a five year old son, who was pretty cute as well, as long as he didn't drool on my bed.
Yepp, I had a real bed, which wasn't very Japanese but comfortable. Except my pillow was a sack of straw. Literally. I mean it.
My room was very large, very bright, and the upper floor was more or less mine alone. I didn't mind the train ride each day, except when I had to use the bathroom very badly. The classes where okay - how come we understood our Japanese teachers so much better in Japan than we do in Germany?
During that time Jenny introduced me to the wonderful world of Doctor Who, which we used to watch on her notebook after class. Late after class, often. Since one does not usually meet at the hostfamily’s homes and we didn't want to try their patience we sometimes met at University after dinner. Yes, another hour of train and underground train to watch TV. Now I remember what I missed about home. I used to tell my hostmother that I had to meet Jenny because we had to learn/ do some homework/ do some research etc. Sounded better than the truth.
Every Friday we cancelled dinner at home and went to an Issakaya near the Teramachi/Gion, where we ate a lot, drank a few cocktails and then we went to the park of the Yasaka-shrine, sat on our bench (until they stole it) and talked. Or watched another episode. I miss that.
We usually came home late on Friday, where I would find my hostfather asleep on the couch or under the table.
Aside from our every-day life we made a few trips with the class. One Sunday Jenny and I met to walk from my home in Kameoka to her home in Nishikyô in Kyôto, more than 30 km away. We followed the river (the Hozu-gawa) to the city and got lost in Arashiyama. Starting at 10 a.m. and arriving at 8 p.m. I was pretty beat once I got home. The next day our class climbed Mt. Hiei. At the end of that day I climbed the stairs to my room, on my hands and knees. Literaly. My hostmother nearly fell off the chair when she saw me.
Jenny was better in training, because her hostparents, a sweet old couple, took her for hiking-trips every weekend.
During winterbreak, in the week between Christmas and New Year, Jenny went to Tôkyô with seven others, where they stayed in an eight-bed-room. Which is the reason why I didn't come.
Jenny didn't return to Kyôto directly but went straight to Hiroshima after that, where we met at the station and stayed the next week at another youth-hostel. Which was a wired one, but we didn't spent much time there anyway. It was an expensive trip and a strange one, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
During our time in Japan, we didn't learn as much Japanese as I would have liked, by the way. We spend too much time in our group of Germans. Still, it was worth all the time and money it cost us, for me at least. Not everyone was so happy about it, but everyone stayed until the end.
And then you come back and your former life just swallows you and everything is back to normal. And it seems a bit like a dream, looking back.
And no-one ever asks about it.

Hi. I'm back.
Don't want to write too much right now - 19 hours economy class do that to you, even days later. Japan was fun, hostfamily was great, still not able to speak even remotely normal Japanese.
I wrote a long, long journal about that time, but this time I'm not going to post it here - too long. Maybe one day, though, I will post the next part of my Freenet adventure, a long story about the greatest idiots in history. Though it is mostly my father's adventure this time, due to me not being here.
Glad to be back.