Standing in front of the mirror, I wonder if I know this person I see. The person that is so much different from the pictures taken when he left everything he'd known behind for a crazy adventure across the pond. First I think, no, I have no idea who this person is; but then I realise, I know myself better now than I ever have, as a person who has survived his gauntlet, and his trial by fire. I say without pride (of which I had an abundance, but to no good) but rather with a complacency that intermingles periodically with either happiness or sadness for the beginning and the end that this poses, respectively. I don't think I've come to realise anything so important as the fact that I can change myself, change the person I see in the mirror, and the person that appears to others. In most ways, I think, I have not changed, I've simply revealed. Maybe change isn't possible, only different configurations. As Joanna and I have figured out, in the end, we're all the same, just different.

To digress, I've met a few people that I've found to be wonderfully compatible with my way of mind, but I can only think of one that in so little time has challenged me so much and even made me smile while fumbling for whatever point I was trying to make. It's a lovely thing, but one which I leave behind.

I'm leaving behind a lot of things - in fact, I'm leaving behind so much more than I ever had before this adventure begun: friends and experiences, good and bad but which I will have to try to cherish equally because they are of equal importance, in the end.

I haven't written an entry like this in a long time - one that's only purpose is to fill up the empty hours that form the early hours of the morning while all sensible persons get their sleep and I keep my pointless vigil. I always do, before I go. I have yet to have a full night's worth of sleep before endeavouring to far-off airports.

A few hours of sleep beckon. See you when I'm home.