Exactly one month ago I returned from Japan. I still wake every morning hoping I'm back in Kanonji, but quickly remember that I'm no longer there. Time passes but memories don't fade. I am already counting the days until I go back. To everyone who followed my blog for the past year, thank you so much for your support! Here is my last entry.
The last week of my exchange went by in a hurry. Everyday I went out with friends, my host family, and my Rotarians saying many tearful goodbyes and a million thank you's. The morning I left I was surprised by a crowd of my friends and family who came to see me off! (shown in picture below). I can't explain the emotions that I felt that day. I have never felt so loved or in love with a group of people. Their kindness helped me learn why exchange students are important. They are because PEOPLE are important. Because CONNECTIONS are important. Because PEACE is important. One of the best ways of spreading peace and understanding through the world is through exchange. I am honored and proud to call myself a Rotary Exchange Student.
To officially end my exchange blog, here is a video of my year. It is a little long, but every second of it is important to me. If you have the time, please take a look.
For the last time, this is Summer: the luckiest girl on earth.
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I may have just lived through the best two days of my exchange. Possibly the best two days of my life. I feel alive and happier than I've ever felt, so that fact that I won't be here in two weeks make my stomach churn. For now though, I want to share these last two days with you. My dear friend Rena is very special. Not just in the sense that she's funny, adorable, and my best friend, but also because she has a very unique life that she shared with me yesterday. Rena was born on a small island called "Ibuki", about 20 minutes from my town by boat, which has a population of only 700 people. Almost everyone there is in the fishing business, including Rena's parents. Because it's so small, she now lives with a relative in Kanonji so that she can attend my high school and she rarely gets to go home to her island. Only two or three times a year. So when she invited me to go to her home island with her, I was truly honored. We rode on her dad's fishing boat to the island and I was immediately greeted by some of the fisherman that lived there. They were all extremely surprised to see me. Not many people go to Ibuki, much less foreigners. Yet they welcomed me with a barbecue and a tour around the island, twice, in the back of their pickup truck. I have never felt so welcome. The island itself is beautiful and full of many traditional houses. Rena's house for example was first built around 100years ago and most of it hasn't been changed. It was such a unique experience going to that island and really felt special. Rena and I always have an amazing time together, but this was definitely the best. After returning from the island, I quickly wrote my speech, put on my yukata and prepared for my goodbye party held by the Rotarians. It was so kind of them to have a party, I got to see all of my host families, some of which I haven't seen in a long time. My littlest host brother didn't seem to remember me at first, but soon we were play fighting, seen in photos below, and everything was great. I got to spend the dinner sitting next to the next exchange student to come to Oregon. We talked about her worries and I tried to give her as much advice and reassurance as possible. I want her to enjoy herself as much as I have! At the end of the night, I felt truly happy. This morning I woke up eighteen years old. My friends all surprised me at school with presents, most of which they made themselves! (My favorite three are shown in the photo below) But I was in for it. Recently, I made a short music video with my class for fun and this morning we were going to all watch it together between classes. Little did I know that they had planned much more. As soon as the video finished, my friend ran into the room carrying a cake with 「サマー誕生日おめでとう〜」(Summer, Happy Birthday) written on it and at that moment everyone shot confetti into the air! I was so shocked I started to cry. My teacher then started to cry and gave me two large copies of our class photo and a photo of me and all of my friends at Kannichi. As we all ate our cake, my teacher put on a slideshow of photos from this past year with my favorite Japanese song. I have never felt so loved or in honored before in my life. After school I got to spend time with the recently returned exchange student from Oregon and we talked about exchange and then I was able to go to dinner with my host family and some of our family friends. I was again surprised to receive a bouquet of gorgeous flowers, three gifts, and a Totoro cake! I still cannot believe their generosity. We spent the night eating great food and laughing, which was the perfect way to end the night. All in all, I just feel so happy. Honestly, it's like I could just bubble over! As someone who thinks about her mortality and purpose in life on a daily basis, it is the best, most amazing feeling to know that you've made a good impression on a group of people. I will never forget anyone of the people I've met here, I will always be grateful, and I will always be proud of what I accomplished here. It may not be much, but maybe I spread a little tiny bit more peace in the world. I hope so. Until next time, the last blog, this is Summer: truly happy. Dear friends and family back in the U.S., Due to the fact that I am moving to my last host family tomorrow and everyday I am have to come closer to excepting the fact that I will have to return to Oregon, I have decided to issue this blog post as a direct guide of how to deal with "post-exchange Summer". I have changed and experienced an enormous amount of things in the last year so I thought I would issue sort of a warning about when I return. (I promise nothing too crazy!) Some of these things I'm going to list below may also apply when dealing with any other recently returned exchange student, so please take them into account if you meet one of my people. (Meaning exchange students. I consider us our own people, sort of a tribe thing) but please keep in mind that not every exchange student is the same, so some of these may not apply. Let's begin with the basics shall we? Please try to:
To anyone who take the time to read this, thank you, and I hope that you use some of this when meeting recently returned exchange students. We are not the same people we were when we left, we have grown and learned so much. That much change can be a lot on one person so please give any exchange student you meet as much support as you can, we really appreciate it. I am not the same person I was a year ago, but I think I've changed for the better. Again, I apologize for any incorrect English. Until next time, this is Summer: trying to live in every moment of her last three weeks in Japan. Recently, I had the honor of meeting a Chinese exchange student studying Japanese at a university in my prefecture. She and I spent nearly an hour talking about studying Japanese and living in Japan and parted ways as new friends. It was not until after we said goodbye though that I realized that neither of us, during the entire conversation, had spoken in our native tongue. She cannot speak a word of English and I certainly can't speak any Chinese, yet we were able to communicate in our new language quite comfortably. I think it's easy to forget that when you learn a new language that it will allow you to communicate with more people than just native speakers of that language. If it hadn't been for the fact that we both could speak Japanese, we would have never been able to communicate. It's unbelievable to me that somehow, in only a year, I have gone from being virtually mute, to being able to talk about deep subjects in Japanese and connect with so many people. I somewhat feel like I can relate to toddlers more because, like them, at first I was unable to communicate what I wanted. I had to repeat saying words a million times to learn them, make many mistakes, and most of all be patient. Somehow though, it eventually clicked. And if that's not the most magical thing in the world, I'm not sure what is! These last few weeks have been the best of my exchange. I suppose I say that every time, because they just keep getting better, but I honestly mean it! Every morning riding my bike to school, I swear it becomes that scene from beauty and the beast where literally everyone in the town is saying "bonjour" to belle. (I'm belle on a bicycle in this situation.) I honestly wonder how every single Japanese person seems to show so much kindness and respect for others. I have had people help me in all sorts of situations, when I was lost or my bike tire went flat, and each time I am left feeling like there is no way to repay them for going out of their way to help me. My rotary club, host families, teachers, and school mates are so fantastic, I could give them everything I have and still feel indebted to them. They truly inspire me to treat every person with respect no matter our differences. I only have one month left here, so I intend to make it the best. To all my Oregonians, I'll be back before you know it. Moving on to a topic I would like to discuss a little more: the recent soccer game of the U.S. vs Japan. If you did not see my short post on Facebook, here is what I said: 「I wanted to write a short post congratulating the U.S. and Japan on their game today, but now I would like to address something more important. Since the U.S. won the game, a great number of ignorant people have made posts on Twitter talking about the win using the hashtag Nagasaki and Pearl Harbor. I am appalled by the ignorance and unbelievable disrespectful of the people who have written these posts. Those two events are incredibly tragic and sensitive parts of both the U.S.'s and Japan's history and the fact that you would use those to relate to a SOCCER GAME is offensive, unintelligent, and makes me feel awful for any of the people of Japan who may read these posts. If you want to celebrate, fine. Just don't be an idiot and refer to tragic events that you cannot comprehend like it okay. It's disgraceful. Thank you.」 I am normally a person who keeps out of Internet debates and does not post my opinions on the Internet for a number of reasons, but this was different for me. As you most likely know, I am an American woman living in Japan and I consider this country my second home. So seeing this trending on Twitter hurt me. I am an optimist but when things like this show up, its very easy to get down trodden. There are many reasons why this is not okay, but most of all its because it's disrespectful. People died. Both acts were in a time of war. In my opinion, there is no excuse for either but whatever your opinion on that is, I think we can agree that times have changed and neither of our countries are the same as they were then. So people using these events to relate to a soccer game win is unbelievably ignorant. I have encountered people before who think it's okay to use these events as an excuse to hide their secret prejudice and hatred when talking about present issues and events between the two countries. I have met some who even told me that I was ignorant for going to Japan and for "forgetting what they did to us". I do not forget. I do not praise what either country did in that time but I will not keep it from letting me learn about an amazing country that has done a million things to try to erase that past. Holding on to hate and prejudice can only lead us to more of it. Letting go and seeing how we can redeem ourselves is the only way to peace. As I said before when I wrote about Hiroshima, that is why I am an exchange student. I am here to build new bridges and to create new connections with another country's people in hopes that I can help erase past grudges, scars, and hatred. That is why I am disgusted that people would try to use tragic events of the past as a joke about winning the World Cup. Those who have need to open their eyes. Maybe even go on exchange! I pity their ignorance and hope one day that they will meet a Japanese person and realize what they said was offensive to another human being. I hope that they find their humanity. That's all for now. Until next time, this is Summer: proud to be an exchange student to Japan. In the nine months I have lived in Japan, I have only missed two days of school. The first was because of a trip with my host family to Tokyo and the other because of a bad cold. I personally love school and look forward to it everyday, so the fact that I'm having to stay home because I'm exhausted is kind of upsetting. To be honest, I have needed to take a day off for about a month now but have just kept putting it off because of how much fun I always have at school. But I think if I can take a day off to rest and that makes me feel more energized, than perfect. In my last two months here I need all the energy I can get. Going back a little ways, last month I was able to participate in my school's sports festival! As seen in some of the photos, I competed with my class 3-3 wearing awesome class patches and participated in the relay and tug of war. Our class would have won tug of war but we lost in the last round against all the teachers. Still, it was super fun! During the lunch break I also performed a dance to "Shake it Off" with Cheer club for the first time! It was so exciting to be wearing the uniform and performing in front of my whole school. Immediately after the performance I asked my captain if I could stay on the team and cheer at the summer baseball games. She told me it would be very difficult to learn all 32 cheers in time but if I worked hard, I could do it. From then on I have practiced cheer after school almost everyday and participated in my first baseball game! So let's talk about that now. Everyday after school we spend about two-three hours practicing cheer by the river. Of course if it's raining we practice at school, but most days we all take the five minute walk to the river bank and just practice there! (Can be seen in our group photo) Our everyday regimen includes running through our cheers, one specifically fifteen times in a row to build endurance for the amount of times we perform it during the games, and voice matches which happen just so: all the club members get mixed up so that it's always different people, then two people move very, very away from the group and from that far away point they shout out cheers as loud as they can. The person with the louder cheers gets to return to the group while the other has to stay and compete against the next person. It's super fun and I always look forward to it. About two weeks ago I got to participate in my first baseball game! We arrived in our uniforms, had a quick meeting, and then as soon as the game began we started to cheer. It was super cool because at the beginning we had a greeting for the other cheer team and then they did the same. It was so respectful, but in a fun way! Throughout the game we cheered nonstop. Okay, technically we had a few 2 minute breaks but it sure didn't feel like it. Our cheer captain would yell out a cheer name and boom, we'd immediately start doing it. It felt awesome to be cheering for our school and felt even better when we won 12-0! I can't wait for the next game in July. Yesterday was a very difficult experience for me. Last October I was lucky enough to meet Kori, another exchange student living on my island from California. Throughout our time in Japan we have technically only met 12 times. Which is funny, because I feel like I've known her for years. Going on exchange creates an indescribable bond between people. There's no explanation to how it works, but I know I've made connections that will last forever. That's why saying goodbye to Kori yesterday was so hard. Yes, I know she lives in California, very close. But we all have lives that keep us busy, so I don't know how long it will be until I see her again, but also this puts the fact that my exchange is also ending on my radar. Of course I still have about two months here, which I am unbelievably grateful for, but the fact that I had to say "so long" to one of the people who lived this life in Japan with me, is a wake up call. Time is only going to go by faster from now on. So here's to you Kori, one of the funniest people I've ever met, and here's to our amazing adventures we've had. I hope one day we can explore this country together again. All in all, I'm very happy here and will keep trying everyday to learn and experience as much as possible. Until next time, this is Summer, who just got a huge reality check. If I could sum up the last few weeks with one word, it would be change. In both good ways and less good ways there has been a lot of things that are brand new and I am doing my best to adjust and enjoy it all. First example: relationships. As I mentioned in my last entry, my friendships and general relationships with people here have changed dramatically. The most recent being the connection I didn't realize I had yet with my host siblings. The other day I took a step back and realized how much has changed in the months that I've lived with them. It all occurred to me while we were playing an intense game of summer-hides-in-her-bedroom-then-jumps-out-and-scares-everyone/summer-pretends-to-be-asleep-until-the-kids-get-close-enough-and-then-scares-the-heebie-jeebies-out-of-them. We were all laughing so hard. My host parents even placed themselves in a spot where they could watch the show! I would hide or prepare and the kids would come to me giggling like crazy, waiting for me to surprise them. I would wait an extra second before jumping up and making a noise similar to a dinosaur mixed with "BARRGANUKCRSKIZ!!" Every single time they would run back to their room and I would chase after them, but it would only take them about a minute to emerge again to face the "monster". It was at the point where I had all three of my host siblings throwing their underwear and bedsheets at me while I was wearing my littlest host brother's tiny hat, all of us cackling like crazy, that I realized how much had changed since I came to live with them. When I first arrived my host siblings hardly talked to me and the littlest one would throw things at me daily. Not to mention using all the "bad" words in his four year old dictionary to try to offend me. In all honestly, it was not an easy relationship to build, but I'm so glad that by the time I left that house I had some fond memories and a great friendship with my host siblings. Four days ago I changed host families again! This time my new home was only five minutes away from my previous, so the move was the easiest so far. My new room has a great view of the mountains and of my current town, Toyohama. My new family has three kids but only one lives here, so most of the time it's just me and my host parents, who are both very kind. It's very strange though living here in such a quiet house after living with three kids who enjoy to yell. I do enjoy getting a full nights sleep though. Quick note on food: I think have officially tried the weirdest food here. Over my eight-ish months here I have eaten jellyfish, octopus dumplings, beans that are pretty much rotten, dried fish (including bones, head, and eyeballs), and parts of chicken that I'm glad I couldn't translate. But this week's meal topped it all off. This week I enjoyed black, squid ink pasta. It makes your teeth black and is one of the most terrifying foods I think I've ever seen. However, once you get over the sight, it wasn't too bad! School is super great. If I didn't mention it before, I recently became a cheerleader at my school! One of my close friends is the captain/choreographer and has asked me to join since the last year, so I finally did! Our original plan was that I was just going to join the cheer team for a single performance of an incredibly fun dance to Taylor Swift's "Shake it Off". But now I am going to continue with the team to cheer at the three baseball games next month! Japanese cheer leaders are pretty different from American cheerleaders in the sense that they don't do acrobatics, they just dance and cheer throughout the games. Without stopping. It's intense. I'm currently learning all 30 of the cheers/dances so that I can participate next month and also preparing for my first dance next week! I'm super nervous but I know that once I've got the outfit on, the pom poms in my hands, and the music blaring, it'll all be great. I shall try to take a video and post it later! School has become a lot more exciting now that my vocabulary has improved, I've finally figured out how to make people laugh in Japanese! If you didn't know me well in the U.S., one of my favorite things to do is to make people laugh. I will be an absolute goofball just to get a giggle out of someone, so being unable to do that for a long time was almost painful for me. But now I can make people laugh in two languages!! ITS THE BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD. On a completely different note, I believe I am at the best and worst part of my exchange. Everyday I learn tons of new words and make a million new memories, but now that I know when I'll be returning to the U.S., I'm starting to think about life after exchange. Which is a terrifying thought for every exchange student. Waking up here every morning is the dream life that I've wanted since the age of seven, so imagining it ending is almost impossible. Because I only have three months left I'm beginning to plan exactly how I want to spend my time. One of my decisions has been to stop going to badminton club. Now that I've joined cheer club, which will be pretty intense from now until the end of July, I've realized how much I've been overbooking myself. I don't want to be exhausted for the last part of my exchange so, as sad as I am to leave the club, I know it is the best thing for me now. I will, however, continue practicing badminton in PE which I'm very happy about. All in all, I'm trying to keep myself busy as I enjoy my time here. I'm very happy. There's so much to be learned from the people, the culture, and this country. I know I sound like a broken record but, I am one hell of a lucky girl. Until next time, this is Summer the new cheerleader! (Let's hope I don't mess up.) Before getting into my actual blog, I would like to make a quick thank you to my dear friend Kitra Moeny for convincing me two years ago to join the speech and debate team. Without all of that practice speaking in front of others, I would have never been able to do the speeches I did this weekend and 17 other times during my exchange. How very ironic that I would be asked to speak the district conference the very same weekend that she and I competed in the state speech tournament exactly one year ago! Anyway, before moving on to my recent adventures, I thought I should give thanks where it is due. I love you kitra and can't thank you enough for forcing me into something that has ended up helping me a ton during exchange! The last month and a half has been incredible. When my mom came to Japan and incredibly surprising thing happened to me, my Japanese got better!! Perhaps it was all the translating I did during those ten days or just the amount I've been speaking recently. Whatever the reason, my exchange has reached its highest point in every way. School is incredible. I have a close group of friends that I hang out with everyday and continuously make new friends as more and more people realize that I can speak comfortably in Japanese! My closest friends and I hang out everyday and now they even give me hugs, which took around seven months for them to do. They weren't sure if it was okay to really touch me in any way. It's really nice now that I can hug them or grab their hand and its okay. Also side note: they are absolutely adorable. I love them so much. Club activities are also fantastic! I'm currently very busy because I made the crazy decision to be in badminton, tea ceremony, english, AND cheer club. I love it though. Sometimes practices in cheer and badminton are very hard, but it always is a ton of fun. Sometimes we get distracted from actually practicing and just end up talking about the differences between Japanese and American schools or they like to just compare their bodies to mine. This is actually one of my favorite things because they are so sweetly fascinated by how different I look! Sometimes they'll stand next to me comparing height or stare at my freckles or how long my eyelashes are and be in total awe. It's almost childish, but I don't care one bit! I've grown to like being alien in some respects .=) Recently at school we have been preparing for a big sports event we have next month that includes relays, tug of war, three legged races, and also dancing! Each grade is learning a series of dances that we will all perform at the event, my grade is learning a waltz and a tango! It's quite a funny experience because the boys and girls are extremely shy about holding hands and dancing together. It's very fun though and it's giving me an opportunity to get the shy guys to talk to me. Little by little, they are realizing it's okay to talk to me and that I don't bite. At least not usually. ;) Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to go on the exchange trip to Kyoto for two days along with some of my favorite people in the world. There were around 10 inbounds and 8 outbounds from my island and the district across from us on the main island of Japan. We weren't sure what language to speak in, which was rather hilarious, but ended up communicating and enjoying many famous places in Kyoto. It's incredible to me how quickly we exchange students bond with each other. Some of them I have met only twice but I feel like I've known them forever! We all have experienced the same joys, difficulties, successes, and failures here and that has helped us all create bonds that we will have for the rest of our lives. That is just one of the few blessings that come with being a part of rotary exchange and makes me all the more proud to be a rotary exchange student. Yesterday I was given the honor to speak at the shikoku district meeting in Matsuyama to around 2000 Rotarians from my district. This is why I thanked my speech partner in the beginning of this blog because honestly, because of my time spent in speech, I felt as though I was just at another speech tournament. I just thought of all the things Kit would say to me to calm my nerves and walked to the microphone. The second before I started my speech a yell from the back of the auditorium. 「サマーがんばれ!」which can be translated as "You can do it summer!" My club president, a very sweet white haired man, had yelled it. That sealed the deal. With a deep breath, I began my speech and it went perfectly. I am extremely proud of that moment. In my speech I introduced myself and my fellow exchange students to the Rotarians and explained how difficult the beginning of my exchange had been because of the language barrier. I told them how much I appreciate everyone's kindness and how because of their help I was able to make this speech. I told them how much my fellow exchange students and I were studying the culture and language of Japan and said that we would continue to try our best. I finished by giving them one last thank you and the lowest, most respectful now I could muster. With that, it was over. It only lasted about two minutes, but I was so honored that they asked me to speak at all, that no matter how short I was lucky. That very morning my fellow exchange students and I also did a fifteen minute speech covering all of our exchange, so I was glad to only have to speech for two minutes in front of the people who gave me this experience. After the meeting, my shikoku ladies and I explored Matsuyama and had a ton of fun discussing the usual: weird food, school, Japanese, and attractive Japanese people. Also deciding whether to buy more pins for our jackets, even though they are almost too heavy to wear. I'm so lucky to have them around and can't wait until the next meeting. All in all, this is the best time and in think it can only keep going up from here. I'm thankful for everyday and look forward to the next few months. Until next time, this is a very, very happy Summer. Quick note: a video of my speech was taken by a rotarian so in case anyone would like to see it, I will upload it as soon as it is sent to me! Unlike my usual blogs, I decided to try making a video instead. I normally do not like to watch myself on film so I have never done this before. I tried to cut out some of my ramblings and add background music to make it a little less boring, also to distract from the fact that my English isnt too great recently. Anywho, please let me know if I successfully made something that resembles a video blog. Enjoy! Here's the link: This last week has been full of change. On Wednesday we moved into our brand new school building and yesterday was the last day of school at 観音寺第一高校。(In Japan they finish school in March and start the new year in April.) I've spent the last seven months in the fantastic class 2-3 with some of the kindest people I have ever met. I knew that it wasn't really the end, I'd still see them around school, but not having them in the same is really hard because just in the last couple of months have I actually gotten to know them. My teacher was definitely the hardest to say a last "thank you" though. In Japan, high schools trade teachers ever year and no one knows who is leaving or staying until the day of change. As a foreigner, this seems a little extreme, but it's just how they do things. Anyways, because our teacher is fantastic and we all wanted to give her a big thank you and possible farewell, we decided to surprise her with a blast from the past. To understand this, I have to go back a little. In September, during my first week of school, our class participated in the school festival. We put on a small show, sang a song called "Kanade" that's been very popular in Japan this year, and wore our awesome class tshirts. It was such a great memory that we decided to surprise our teacher with the same performance. During cleaning time after school we all put on our class shirts underneath our uniforms and quickly returned to class. After a tearful speech from our teacher, she wasn't the only one crying though (we all were), one student gave the signal and we all took off our uniform shirts, revealing our yellow and blue 2-3組 tshirts. With that everyone lost it. When we started to sing you could hardly hear us because more than half of us were crying. That song will forever be special to me. I have been so fortunate to be included in 2-3組, I can never thank my teachers enough. I learned so much from everyone and now have so many connections because of them, I am incredibly grateful. Now I'm sitting on a Shinkansen with my second host parents, headed for Tokyo to meet my mom. In the next three weeks I will join cheer club, show my mom around Japan, start a new year of school, travel to Kyoto with the other exchange students, and celebrate my seven month-iversary in Japan. A lot of memories behind and a lot of changes ahead of me. I'm terrified, exhilarated, and so very grateful. I have no idea where the time went but I will try to hold onto each second! Until next time, this is Summer of 観音寺。 Sometime during my third month here in Japan, I heard about an extremely popular tv drama currently airing here in Japan called: マッサーン (Massan). In Japan, drama is a huge genre in television and is very popular with all ages. Soon after hearing about this I noticed some people that met me or were whispering about me saying something about someone named Ellie. Somehow this "Ellie" had something to do with me. About a week later, I watched an episode with my family and I was very surprised to discover that in this drama one of the two main characters was a foreigner! Her character's name is Ellie. This show is based on the true story of Japan's first whiskey manufacturer Masaharu, or Massan for short, and his Scottish wife Ellie. This is the first time in Japanese history that a foreign actor/actress had ever starred in a tv drama and the characters have become a household name throughout the country. I personally love the show because the entire thing takes places in 1920's Japan, an incredibly unique time in Japan's history, when westernization was first slowly moving into society and yet the old ways of the country still lingered. I also relate to Ellie a great deal. Her character speaks nearly fluent Japanese, but she still has to learn many complicated words and about all of the customs of traditional Japan, which is great because I can learn some with her character! Because of her character's personality, her foreign looks, and her Japanese, the people here have started to relate me to her. One of my Rotarians even calls me Ellie-chan every once in a while! I am honored to be compared to such a loved character her. She inspires me every time I watch. If she could make it back then, so can I! Also my middle name is Elyse which is close to Ellie and that just makes me happy. ε-(´∀`; ) On a different note, the barrier at school has broken. It took a few days shy of five months but it's been done. After speaking with all three of my amazing english teachers, amazing women that inspire me to teach, about making friends with teenagers who are extremely different from the ones back at home, we made a plan and put it in action. Only a few weeks later, I feel better at school than ever. In one week I was asked to hang out four times and a couple weeks ago I went to karaoke and Okonomiyaki with four classmates! I have lunch with a great group everyday who help me speak Japanese. They rock and are beyond adorable. In between classes and during club activities I get to have even more fun with them! I only have about one more month with my class, so I try to talk to everyone a lot each day! It sure ain't easy but I SHALL KEEP TRYING! Last things I'd like to cover: my current family and the Okayama rotary meeting. My host family has three kids, their grandmother and grandfather living with us. They are all pretty great. The oldest daughter is an absolute sweetheart. She helps me with homework, taught me how to make valentines chocolate, and enjoys showing me off to her friends. She's eleven and I love her! The other two boys are nine and four. The older is nice but my littlest host brother is definitely a trouble maker. He enjoys calling me an idiot, hitting me, and throwing things at me but he's getting better! I love kids and usually get along with them extremely well, because I am one, so I suppose it's about time I had a challenge. My host grandparents are awesome. They like to take me places and buy me matcha ice cream balls and they are extremely healthy! Though most Japanese people are I suppose. Overall, current host family: good! Lastly, THE MEETING IN OKAYAMA WAS FLIPPING FANTASTIC! It blows my mind how in two days people who have never met can become so close. I absolutely can't wait to see the all again!! Okay. There you go. A general summary for month five/six. At the moment of writing this I am on a bus that is absolutely silent and smells like bananas. Also I'm stuffing my face with homemade Valentine's Day chocolate. (Everyone traded treats at school today and I was not expecting to receive this much!) I think after finishing all of these I should probably consider a career as a sumo wrestler. Anyway until next time, HOODIE MONKS FOREVER! (Don't ask) |
AuthorI am Summer Ashley and this is my blog documenting my year long exchange to Japan. Archives
September 2015
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