So so so… I’ve booked the gap year flight and submitted forms to open a new bank account with Nationwide today, that I can access all over the world. It’s a visa debit card but this is of course assuming I can understand a Japanese ATM machine or there’s an English option ^^;. My old childhood friend *Chris* came over yesterday afternoon and left this morning. We hadn’t seen each other in something like 2 years, despite only living about 1 1/2 hours apart. It’ll be another 6 months at least before I see most of my friends again, so it was good to catch up just in time ^_^.

We walked around the fields near my house and talked for a while about careers, life goals, experiences – as you do ^^. My respect certainly goes out to all those who enrol in the army infantry – it sounds really tough! Afterwards, we bought one of those 10 pence ice poles each from the post office (the sort you had as a child; the long, colourful ‘Mr Snow’ ice poles or whatnot) and then decided to walk to the CO-OP and bought…milk, to drink, and I got some penny sweets and ate them while watching a group of kids playing football in the park ^^;.

It’s incredible how quickly you grow up, at least physically. I still feel like I’m 13 or 14 and yet have to contend with invisible binding twine sprung from everyone around me. Chris and I came to a mutual observation that just a simple thing such as running (for fun) across a park or playing football with the younger kids could be socially seen as ‘odd’ at this age. I suppose it really depends on whether you let yourself grow up that determines whether you do, but it seems sad that as an ‘adult’ you are expected to conform to more sensible rules.

Later on we went blackberry picking with my sister from the shrubs near where I live and ended up having a blackberry war hehe ^_^. For most of the rest of the night we just relaxed. Chris showed me Anarchy Online – an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) and we watched Pirates of the Caribbean at midnight :P. It’s a shame I’ll have to wait another 6 months at least before we can hang out again, but I plan on writing to keep in touch with him and everyone else anyway. Writing letters the snail mail way! That’ll be fun, especially if people reply. I find it so much more satisfying to have a letter on my doorstep than an email in my inbox. It’s a lot more personal, what with the handwriting, drawings, photos – even the smell sometimes! So just a *slight* hint then, for people to write to me as well as email :P