I am still picking bugs out of my hair. Today I rode my bike and ride my bike and rode my bike. I rode as far out as I could. Tokushima extends out into the ocean to a ferry terminal and an industrial man-made island. I found a squatters camp beside the sea; a park full of giant pines with their roots partly out of the ground like they were trying to walk away, and laughing children playing among them; secret piles of ocean garbage-- styrofoam, anchors, nets, flotsam, jetsam; a mountainous pile of stone and concrete buddhas; sparkling watersides, good smells, bad smells, a lot of concrete, and many many smiling curious people. It was a sunny breezy day, and my head was full-- I needed to just go and go and let the salt air wash me out. Autumn is always a tulmultuous time; particularly now that I don't have the newness of school to look forward to. No new classes or new friends or new school clothes. I'll have to go and buy some nice stationary for my Japanese lessons, fill the void. At least I know why I feel funny, and I don't have to spend ages stressing about why I'm stressing. I think I'm buying into the melancholy theme that is marketed here in Japan to go with the shift in seasons; as the leaves change colour, one is meant to contemplate moodily and moon about over failed romances and days gone by. I don't regret any of my history, but I am a little homesick lately and anxious about what comes next. I have my contract evaluation in a week. Mom and dad want to know where exactly I'll be in August of next year. I don't know! Depends on whether Nova want to keep me on, whether I want to keep on with Nova. I don't know, I don't know. I can only trust that I will know, eventually.