Non-rant

Earlier this evening, out of the blue I was reminded of my homestay in Japan. I haven't talked about the actual homestay much, mostly because I came back from Japan in such a wonderful mood with such wonderful memories that I couldn't bear to walk down that terrible road. It was one horrible aspect of an incredible trip. I wanted to banish it from my memory forever, which is something I've never done before. I have a tendency to enjoy harping on the negative and "hating" everyone, and normally I'd love to pound out a rant about what they did to me. I know that makes it sound probably worse than it really was. In short, my host student and her twin sister were cold and rude to me during the entire homestay, and I didn't like her parents very much either. 

The thing is, just now I sat down planning on ranting on the entire experience, reliving every terrible moment that could have potentially destroyed my trip. But after talking to my mom, I realized there was a deeper reason why I haven't talked about this yet. I need to change my ways, and this is the perfect place to start. Yes, I want to send this girl an angry hate-filled email or march up to her and slap her on the face the next time I visit the country, but that would be completely counter-productive. I can't just say the trip changed my life because I found a new love for Japanese culture. I have to go beyond that and say it changed my character because for the first time in my life, I tried to make the best of a really awful situation. Making the best out of a situation is one of the first lesson we learn as children, but it has been one of the most difficult for me. If I really want to make it so this trip changed my life, I need to continue doing what I was doing before. Just because school has started again and my stress levels are rising again doesn't mean I can go back to my old ways. This girl had problems and should not have been part of the problem, but I'm not going to focus on it. This post is not about her, but about me. I don't want to think about her, because she is in the past. My experiences from the trip are the future, shaping who I will be in the future. That's all that matters.