I’m starting to feel like traveling abroad again. I’ve always been a little stingy, so whenever I think about traveling, I look at how much money I have saved and sometimes hesitate to spend it. That’s exactly how I feel right now. Depending on the destination, a round-trip flight can cost around 100,000 yen. Then I start thinking, “I could buy a computer with that!” or “I could get a really nice bicycle!” That way of thinking sometimes stops me from traveling abroad. I’ve felt this way before, but traveling has always been worth the money. I’ve been to a few countries, including Mongolia, Australia, and Cambodia. Whenever I travel, I feel as if everything has been refreshed. Going to another country takes me away from what is considered normal in Japan. The things I was worried about back home suddenly seem small, so I can escape from reality for a while and feel as if something inside me has been reset. (Even though nothing has actually been reset.) To put it dramatically, traveling makes me feel like saying, “All right, it’s time to start the next chapter of my life!” (Although, in the end, my life never changes enough to truly feel like a new chapter has begun.) I love traveling abroad because it gives me that feeling of refreshment, and lately, I’ve been wanting to experience it again. My last trip abroad was to Mongolia a year ago, and before that, I went to Australia two years ago. I’d like to travel abroad about once a year. Speaking of Mongolia, I spent seven or eight days traveling with people from several different countries. A few days ago, one of the friends I met there sent me a message on Instagram. During our trip, she had been taking photos with a film camera. She recently had the film developed and found a few photos of me, so she sent them to me. I thought there was something really special about that. The photos were taken a year ago, but only recently were they developed, turned into something we could actually see, and shared with me. One of those photos is the photo I used for this diary entry. It shows me sitting alone in the Mongolian grasslands early in the morning, quietly staring into the distance and doing nothing in particular. I was quite far away from my friends at the time, so I had no idea that someone had taken a photo of me. Finding out a year later that she had secretly captured that moment was a real surprise. For an entire year, those memories existed without us knowing what they would look like. Now, they have finally taken shape. Seeing the photos brought those wonderful memories back to life and made them feel even more special. Seeing those photos made me appreciate film cameras even more, and being reminded of how much fun I had in Mongolia made me want to travel again. Those feelings are what inspired me to write about traveling today.

About two months ago, I finally reached 65 kg, which is almost 10 kg heavier than I was about six months earlier. I once wrote a journal entry titled _"From 55kg to 60kg,"_ and now I've finally reached the 65 kg milestone that I'd been aiming for. People around me have started noticing the change, and even when I tell someone I've always been the type of person who struggles to gain weight, they no longer react as if I'm obviously skinny. That makes me really happy. I still have a long way to go with strength training, but I feel like I've accomplished my goal of gaining weight. From here on, I want to maintain my current weight while continuing to build muscle so that I can develop a balanced, healthy physique. To reach 65 kg, I had to eat a lot more than usual and really push myself. Now that I've reached my goal, I don't feel the need to force myself to gain any more weight. As long as I can stay around 65 kg, I'll be satisfied. I had actually been worried that maintaining my weight might be just as difficult as gaining it. Surprisingly, though, I've been able to stay around 65 kg for about two months without putting in nearly as much effort. I still eat a little more than I used to, but nothing extreme. Over the past couple of weeks in particular, work has been so busy that there were quite a few days when I couldn't eat much for lunch or dinner. Even so, every time I stepped onto the scale, I was nervous that I might have lost weight. Instead, my weight hadn't changed at all, which made me really happy. I honestly have no idea why.

I've been taking tennis lessons since March, so it's been about four months now. Lately, tennis has become my biggest hobby. It's the thing I enjoy the most right now. Tennis is an individual sport, but during practice it often feels like a team sport, and that's one of the things I like about it. I used to be a swimmer, and swimming is completely individual. Tennis is technically an individual sport as well, but because it only exists through playing with someone else, it never really feels like something you do alone. I've always preferred individual sports, but I think this balance—being an individual sport while still letting everyone laugh, encourage each other, and enjoy the game together—is what makes tennis so appealing. It also helps that it's a sport where it's easy to notice your own improvement when you keep practicing, and that sense of progress makes it even more enjoyable. Until recently, I hadn't been doing much exercise that really made me sweat, so tennis has been great for my health as well. I want to keep improving until I can hit the ball with real power and confidence.

The day before yesterday, my alma mater came to interview me about my work and my company's work style. A reporter, a photographer, a producer, and another staff member traveled all the way from the Kansai region to Tokyo for a one-day trip to interview me, take photos, and write an article that will be published later. Knowing that several people had traveled such a long way just for this interview made me feel a slight sense of pressure. I kept thinking that I wanted to make their trip worthwhile by giving them something meaningful to write about. At the same time, I was genuinely looking forward to the interview. They had told me in advance that they wanted to hear everything from my childhood onward, so I thought it would be a great opportunity for self-reflection. I was excited by the possibility that, through their questions, I might discover something about myself that I had never noticed before. The interview lasted about an hour and a half. I realized that I probably hadn't talked about myself this much since my job-hunting days, and I really enjoyed the experience. I'm usually the kind of person who listens rather than talks. Because of that, I expected that ninety minutes would be enough time to tell many stories about myself. Surprisingly, though, I came away feeling as if I hadn't actually said that much. Then I realized that expecting to summarize an entire life in just ninety minutes is unrealistic. Looking back, it's impressive that we managed to cover as much as we did, and I think that says a lot about how skillfully the interviewer guided the conversation. Still, there was one thing that left me wanting a little more. When I listen to other people, I think of conversations as having different layers. Every follow-up question takes the conversation one layer deeper. The first layer is about "what" happened. The second layer is about "why" it happened. Go even deeper, and you start to uncover the values, motivations, and beliefs behind those reasons. During this interview, however, most of our conversation stayed at what I would call the first layer, or sometimes even the surface. We talked about what I had done, but we rarely had enough time to go into why I had made those choices or what had driven me. That's completely understandable given the limited time, but I found myself wanting to explore those deeper layers. For me, that's where conversations become truly interesting. I wasn't only hoping to tell my story—I was hoping that talking through those deeper "why" questions would help me discover parts of myself that I hadn't recognized before. Those are the moments when I learn something new about myself. That realization also led me to another thought. Why was I relying on this interview to better understand myself? If I really want to know who I am, I shouldn't wait for someone else to ask me the right questions. I should spend more time asking those questions myself and reflecting on my own life. Reading this back, the second half sounds a little more negative than I actually feel. Overall, though, the experience was overwhelmingly positive. I'm grateful that my university chose to feature me, and I genuinely enjoyed the interview. More than anything, I was reminded that there's still plenty left to uncover about myself.

It’s been a while since I’ve had such an intense and packed week. Going to my first real mixer (goukon), watching a soccer match live for the first time, and enjoying a bonfire—the week was full of firsts, and I had a blast. I definitely want to keep stepping out of my comfort zone and accumulating these kinds of unchartered experiences. At the same time, I haven’t been able to dedicate much time lately to my app development side projects or studying. I consider myself a pretty driven person, but it feels like I haven’t been properly facing that side of myself recently. These days, my spare time is consumed by eating constantly for my bulking and fitness goals. After work, I’m either out drinking or at tennis school, and on weekends, I’m always hanging out with someone or shopping. I used to find it a hassle to even step outside after work or on weekends, preferring to just stay home, so my lifestyle has completely flipped. Originally, I wanted to go out more because I wanted to change my overly introspective nature. But now, I’m spending too much time outside, which leaves me no room for new, reflective challenges—like building a new income stream or reading books. I think this is my next hurdle. Since turning 26, the anxiety of growing older like this has been getting stronger day by day. Both lifestyles are important, so I want to find a good balance between them. Or rather, I really need to figure out how to manage my time better.