sleepless in bed

The past few weeks, I've been having a really hard time falling asleep at night. It's not that I'm not tired, or that I'm sleeping during the day (although today, not sleeping much finally caught up with me, and I took a nap in the afternoon). At first, I was waking up really early because I was either too hot or too cold. I would wake up at 6 or 7 am and wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. For the past week or so, I've been going to bed late instead, sleeping from 4 or 5 am until about 9 or 10 am. I don't know how that started, but ever since I found out about Japan, I've had an even harder time getting my brain to stop working when it should.

Between finding out about the city I'll be living in, learning Japanese, offically accepting the position, and figuring out what I need to do before July, I haven't been able to be near my computer without thinking about googling something or other. And that something or other usually leads to something else, and something else, and pretty soon, I have windows and tabs open all over the place, and I don't remember what I was originally looking for.

I'm at once getting more excited and more intimidated by the prospect of moving to Japan, even if it is only for a year. I'm not even sure I don't want to stay for a longer period of time. It's not like there's something here in L.A. or even in the States that I'd rather do at this point. And I found out after living at school for four years that it really takes me almost a year to get used to a new place. I don't know if I want to leave just when I've gotten settled. Maybe I'll settle faster now that I know pretty much what I need to do to feel at home somewhere. I think towards the end of my trip to Ukraine, I was starting to settle, and I was only there for a month. But we were out in the middle of nowhere, and there was a set group of foreigners that I spent most of my time with, so I didn't really settle into the culture so much as just the new place.

Anyway, before I obsess over that too much, I need to sort out all the things I need to do now, like figuring out all the things I need to get and getting them. All the stuff I've been looking up online so far has to do with what I need to do once I get there. I think I'm helpless enough in Japanese that I'll be getting a lot of help with those things, though, and until I can restore some sort of order to all the thoughts and questions and things floating around in my head, I'm going to have a really hard time falling asleep. Even now, I feel as if I'd be okay just waking up to Jo's alarm that I heard go off a minute ago. So I should really concentrate on what I need to do now. Which means a long to-do list. Or several short ones.