I’m waiting at St. Louis Lambert Airport right now, on my way to LA for a few days before heading back to Japan. This has been a great trip back home. It seems like it was much longer than the October visit. It was longer, by a few days, but that’s not what I mean. Saw a pretty good number of people, ate lots of good food, and most of all relaxed. Even on days when I do absolutely nothing back in Japan, it feels like I’m always worrying or thinking about something – getting a job, making more money, scheming some new plan, etc. I should still be worrying about those, but I think sitting around at my parents house made it actually feel like it was a vacation rather than just being jobless for the day.
Visited Bloomington on Wednesday and Thursday. It was the first time I’d been back since visiting in August of 06, and for the most part things haven’t changed. But in a good way. There are of course some things that were different or new: the old Ashton building where IUSTV used to be is now a grass field. The new science building, Simon Hall, is done and it matches almost perfectly with the neighboring limestone buildings. The construction next to the Auditorium was finally finished. I saw IUSTV’s new office layout and was very impressed – the exec cubicles and editing stations were swapped and re-done into a new configuration that was much cleaner than what I had put together.
I saw a few people in town, mainly Frank and Nick who came to hang out. Also made some visits to other people and university staff. But without all the friends and stuff in town like “back in the day,” Bloomington was very different. I don’t even know how to explain it, but while on the surface things seemed the same, of course the rest was really different. But anyway, it was a fun trip and a nostalgic visit, so although driving 4 hours each way was a pain, it was worth it. I’ll post pictures and stuff when I get back to Japan in a few days.
