Let me set the scene for you. The year is 2015 and most of the web have been upgraded to the HTML 5 standard. Video is delivered with HTML 5 and games are all produced with WebGL or some derivative thereof. You don't really care about the games though. You're a wealthy 30-something businessman with a successful startup behind you. Your new company is thriving and pushing forward and everyone is looking to you for inspiration and approval. In your small world, you are the big man. All your life you've never really been able to adapt to the "normal workplace". 9 to 5 doesn't suit you and because of your position now you can choose any time and place to work at as you wish. Today, you've chosen the beach in Maui, next to your summer house. You do almost all of your business by phone, with a wireless headset you sit in a beach chair next to a short table. On the table is a drink, it's orange-red and you think it's a Jamaica but you don't really know; you just ordered something sweet from the waiter who works at the bar next to your house. Next to your drink is a panel, a screen with sexy sleek application showing you a merged stream of important people on Twitter and the hottest news-sites on the web. You get a call, it's Phil - the economics-guy -  you know he has a pretty big presentation tomorrow and he's calling you to get a confidence boost and make sure his slides and data seems OK. "The presentation should be in your Inbox" says Phil. You reach over and grab the panel next to your drink, putting it in your lap. You exit your news-feed and check the Inbox, it is indeed there. You open the presentation up, check over the layout and wording, you fix a couple of things and make sure the data and graphs look alright, you add a different less cheesy transition to a slide (Phil has a perverted fancy for using the star-wipe) and then send it back to him. "Just checked it over Phil and it's alright, some minor fixes, I sent it back to you". You talk it over with Phil and make sure he's on the ball with everything and then hang up. While the panel is in your lap you think you might as well check the latest numbers on your stocks and go through some more email. You log onto Facebook and update your status to "Chillin' on the beach as usual, think I'll go for some scuba-diving today though". You put on the latest episode of The Daily Show and stand it back on the table next to your drink. Life is sweet.

Preface

As you may know I tried to get into an exchange program to study a year in Japan. Sadly, I was not accepted into the program. Probably due to my somewhat lacking study-plan, I did not have time to fully prepare and contact the schools to get a course-list and such, and probably partly because students are ranked on their student-related social-activities, of which I have none. All my social activities are about trying to build a company and improve myself by studying outside of school. Anyways, for the application I wrote a Statement of Purpose, a letter saying why I wanted to study in Japan. I'm somewhat happy about it so I thought I'd publish it here. It is slightly edited to remove things specific to the school the application was meant for. This text is obviously geared toward studying science and technology in Japan but could easily be applied to a more general sense of why one should always consider studying abroad.

Statement of Purpose

In a globalized marketplace one must know what is great in other parts of the globe. This is why I have always been very interested in traveling and experiencing other cultures first-hand. During my personal travels I have been to Japan twice, staying for a month each time. Of all the places I have been, I have always felt most at home in Japan. Japan has a bustling science community filled with extremely bright and innovative people. If I had to choose one thing that signified Japan with me it would be technology. As an Engineering student I put technology at first hand, I believe we can solve the worlds problems and change the way we think, act and live with technology. Japan is constantly evolving technology and solving difficult problems with innovation. In my view they are far beyond the rest of the world in many fields of study. I think I could gain great insight by studying technology in the Japanese way. I am convinced that I will be part of Japanese society at some point in my life. If not during my education then in my work after school. It is a wonderful country with so much to offer, so much diversity and culture and an absolutely wonderful atmosphere of peaceful and respectful people. I believe that I could benefit hugely from being able to take part of the Japanese education system and being able to experience the country and the science taking place there during my own education. I think it would lead me to become a much better scientist and engineer. What I would like to do while studying in Japan is of course to continue my current educational direction, which is scientific research and technological development. I have also chosen to study in Tokyo because I have been almost all over Japan but I have yet to find a place so wonderful as Tokyo. Wether I’m emerging myself with technology in Akihabara or enjoying the wonderful scenery of Tokyo Bay from Odaiba, Tokyo is the one place in the world I truly feel at home.

I just worked out for and hour on my exercise bike while reading Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami. I have always found working out to be a great way to clear my mind. While I was showering afterward I was thinking. - "I have so many cool things I could do. There are so many awesome ideas to pursue and fun things to do. Why am I standing here in the shower instead of doing them?" I am not entirely sure I can come up with a reasonable answer to that question.

For those following this blog you probably know what I do at DreamHack and the i-Series in UK. There is an article on Wikipedia describing it very well, it's called a puzzle-hunt. Emanuel and I have grown tired of the confinements brought on by combining the game with a LAN party and constricting ourselves to a certain venue, thus we have decided to create our own entirely separate event. We call this event dekompile! The event is placed in Gothenburg and will be held in April. I don't want to divulge much more information than that and what can be found on the webpage. But I can say that I am really excited about this and it has been in the works in the background of mine and Emanuels life since last summer. Now that we have released the page and started selling tickets, it will take a slightly more prominent place on my schedule and in my thoughts. There is still quite a lot of work done, hosting this kind of thing means a lot of things to think about, people to talk to and stuff to arrange, as well as creating the game and the platform for the players to play it.

I truly believe I am capable of doing whatever I want in my life. But I don't know what that would be. I feel a bad feeling because I don't know what I should put my time into. I want to live in Japan and I want to devote myself wholly to studying japanese and fullfilling that goal, but I don't want to close off all other roads. I want to do it all.

While I was away on my solitary holiday I felt (and wrote about) a certain unpleasant feeling. One could suppose it is a feeling of loneliness. I tried to write about it when I was there and had it most vividly in my memory. I will try to sum up the entire experience at a later point and drawing references to the original description of the experiment, but I wanted to isolate the description of this feeling, as I find it rather interesting and is the core of why I would not want to repeat the experiment in the same way. It's a strange feeling. Being alone in an unfamiliar environment. It's something I've felt a number of times throughout my life. Going back to when I was a kid and going away for camp with school and things of that nature. It's an unnerving feeling of anxiety that reminds me of the fragility of social contact, i.e. how easy it is to become completely desolate and alone. In this state I am actually scared that I might loose those who matter to me, and I become very sentimental about old friends and think very much of how I act toward them and they toward me. Breaking off every single habit I have at once is, it turns out, a pain. Waking up in the morning I feel calm, sleeping restores my faith in my own capabilities. It restores my analytical thinking and makes me capable of analyzing the feeling. Trying to come to grips with it. When the dark comes back and the warming refreshing feeling of the sun is gone my reasoning turns into an active state of trying to remove the anxiety. Trying to think of ways to escape the loneliness rather than confronting the feeling and dealing with it. I am then like a drowning man flailing in the water. As the days passed and I got some routine into the trip I found that the feeling mostly came to me while being in my room. This could very well be because there was nothing to do in the room, nothing to see, nothing new to experience, it was just a completely anonymous room. There was nothing to remind me that I was in a place I actually liked. The feeling came very strongly with actions that reminded me of home and regular routine. The feeling would go away momentarily when using the computer but thinking about using the computer made in come even stronger. It was as if knowing what I was missing out on back home made it stronger, so not only was it a feeling of loneliness, it was a feeling of home-sickness. Spending 500 words writing about a (I am sure) very common feeling is quite unlike me (I hope), but I really found it fascinating. And it's a feeling I really don't have that much, it's not something I have ever experienced on previous travels with family and friends. No, this is something different, something fundamental in me, that I know have been there for very long. Something I wish to rid myself of, but doubtful about the possibilities of doing so.

This is what I'm doing and will be doing for the coming three days. Play Call of Duty, chill out, maybe drink some beer and just do what I want. That's the best possible way I can think of to introduce the new year.