I'll go where I want and I'll say what I want, and no one can take it away.

Things've changed in the world of Kuro Neko.

Not drastically from last year necessarily, I mean the activities all seem the same-- the shopping area with the snacks that you can buy, glomp circles, the rave... But all the people from the past two years have changed. It appeared to be a whole new group, I couldn't recognize hardly any returners from the past two years in the pictures. In the next week or so I'll check back to some of their profiles to see if they went.

It's funny, maybe a lot of their phases ended too.. Or maybe they felt the same vibe that our group felt last year and didn't feel like coming back. Knowing that hardly any people I met there were at the con, I don't feel like I've missed out much by not being there.

It's almost 1 am. I'm a little buzzed. I talked to Jason all day again via text messages, good lord we've been talking a lot. It's interesting to get to know him but I feel odd at the same time because he has a girlfriend. I'm trying to just ignore it and get to know him as much as I can as a friend. I like him though, he's really intelligent.

Tomorrow I'm really going to start studying accounting and math. Just a half hour a day would make such a huge difference for me in the long run, it'll make things a lot less difficult. I've also got to get ahold of the school tomorrow about allowing me to take precalc. I really hope THAT works out because that's stressful for me on top of everything else.

Tyler D. called me today asking if I'd like to get together before I leave. When I told him I wasn't going to be leaving until September 12th or so he's like, "Oh! That's not for a long time." I'm going to try and make this very last few weeks special, even if I don't have much planned.

Because this is, in fact, the last I will ever live with my parents in Benton city. I've promised this to myself, once I'm out of here I'm done. I've lived for 20 years and aside from the brief months in California I've always had the same room, same bed location, same ceiling over my head, same little plastic glow in the dark stars that were taken down only recently...

When I went out to Mizu sushi yesterday to catch up with some of the Japanese club people I explained to Taylor that I was a little nervous.

"You'll be Fine!! Relax, you'll find a new happy place up there. You're going to do great, you're not going to fail."

Of course this is all stuff that deep down but to hear it from him felt wonderful. Taylor is such a nice guy, I wish I hadn't been so tired that evening or I would have initiated more conversation with him.