A day just before the Olympics start…

I am writing this article in a hotel near the Heathrow airport, seeing a beautiful sunset from a window. Tomorrow I will take a flight back to Japan, leaving all the fuss about the London Olympics behind. It means my three-year study in the UK is finally going to be an end. In a sense it is quite difficult for me to feel that way, for I haven’t completed my PhD thesis yet. As long as I am working on it, I will continue to feel that my study in the UK is still going on . What is mandatory for me right now is just to concentrate on my thesis, improving its quality as much as possible, regardless of where I do it.

Nevertheless, I can also say that I am having some mixed feelings right now, namely, sadness and happiness. Sadness since the three years were a really precious time for me, not only in terms of my research, but also of meeting people. Luckily I could make many good friends both in Sheffield and Cardiff. They were all great both in their research and personality. They kept me away from loneliness and unhappiness. It may be true that the improvement of internet technologies (Facebook!) makes it less hard to be separated from friends these days. But it is still a very sad thing not to be able to enjoy being with them for a while. Thanks to them, three years have passed really quickly, with a full of joy and thought stimulation. I truly hope that the relationships with them will last for the rest of my life.

On the other hand, though, I can also say that the three years were a very long time. I especially feel so by considering that I had to leave my loved one alone back in Japan in the meantime, forcing her to incur many difficulties by herself. I have nothing but only the deepest feelings of sorry for what I have done and of respect and gratitude for her having been patiently waiting for me. Now I am very happy that finally I can come back, being able to support her in every aspect of her life (if not economically yet…).

Perhaps my daily life back in Japan won’t be that different from that in the UK: basically I will have to stay at home, reading, writing and doing housework all the time. Yet I can still see that my life enters a next stage now, and I want to put the best effort to make it a fulfilling one.