Seventeen weeks to go!

I'm starting this blog today, seventeen weeks before I leave for Japan.  I'll be teaching English and yoga on the island of Shikoku for fifteen months, and then plan to go on to Germany for my PhD.  A bit about me, just to get it out of the way -

After dropping out of high school twice, I earned a GED and two undergraduate degrees in Linguistics and Sociology.  Currently in pursuit of my MFA in Fiction, I have dreams of earning a doctorate in comparative literature, and teaching at a university.  I think that my experiences can help to shape lives someway.  
Some of my words have been published in various places, which is humbling and awesome at the same time.  When I'm not bleeding my fingers on my computer, I'm lifting heavy and running.  

I grew up stupid poor, and by that I mean it's a wonder I stand upright and use cutlery.  It is by sheer willpower and determination that I escaped a life of EBT cards and waiting on the first of the month.
I speak Russian, am learning Japanese and will tackle German once I get to the land of the rising sun/son.  

I intend for this blog to be an airing of thoughts on my move across the pond, the experiences I have while there (and leading up to them) and general musings of the way life changes when life becomes what one imagines it to be.

I like crystal stemware, scented candles, and complimentary lighting.  I love the sound a cello makes on an early Sunday morning, can quote Tupac and Homer in the same breath and generally accept the fact that I am something of an enigma.

I've just spend eight years in exile from my childhood home of Cincinnati, and though I've been here for ten months, it still doesn't feel like home.  The move to Japan is much a culmination of a dream deferred (thanks, Langston) as it is a decided action to make something more of myself.  

I'm a writer by trade, but it doesn't pay.  Finishing up my MFA at the wonderful Spalding University in Louisville, KY, I don't want this blog to be so perfect that I would submit it to one of my elusive and wonderful professor mentors, but it's not going to be scratch either.  I'll dedicate myself, if you will as well.  Dearest reader, if you're taking the time to read the preface, I hope then that you will continue to read the rest.  

Musings will likely include the ways in which this move is impacting my life, both on a social and emotion level, the notion of living across the pond (and not just visiting) as well as my experiencing with Japanese culture, ex-pat life and looking for a path to love.    

I run hard, train harder and try to live a wholesome life.  Welcome to my world!