One Month and Counting...

Today is July 1st. I go home in exactly one month. My last day of school is in exactly 2 weeks. I don't really believe it

Over the last few weeks I have had mixed feelings about leaving, which I wrote a bit about in the post below this. Usually, depending on the day, either excitement or sadness is more dominant.

Today, with exactly 31 days left I feel excited. I am so excited to see my family! I want to see my friends again. I'm excited for camping and learning how to drive again and the fresh air of the UP. :-) Of course I still feel sad about leaving so soon, but I am more excited.

My schedule for the next month is packed, but it is really good. I feel like I have everything I want to do before leaving scheduled. I don't think there will be anything I feel like I have left undone at the end. I think I will be ready to leave. Still sad, but ready.

Now for a quick update on what I have been up to lately. For Father's Day, the whole family went to the movies. We saw Rookies, which had pretty typical Japanese drama-type acting in it. But it was fun.

Last Friday (the 26th) I skipped school because there was just a Catholic mass at a church pretty far away. I went shopping with my host mom, which was nice. We got stuff for climbing Mt. Fuji. My rotary club insists that tennis shoes are not good enough and gave my family money to buy me proper hiking boots. Either I am way underestimating this 6 hour hike or Japanese people just like to exaggerate it. I will give the shoes to Rotary. Maybe an exchange student next year can use them. That evening I went to a Rotary dinner with my family. That was my last meeting before my farewell party at the end of this month. I received my very last Rotary allowance.

Last Saturday I went to see Manato at his school for the open house day, went to the gym for Zumba, and then went with my host mom to a friend's house where we made Japanese pizzas for lunch, a Hello Kitty shaped cake, and big sushi rolls for dinner.

Japanese pizza. Probably my favoite was the tako-yaki one. Tako i s octopus.

Hello Kitty!

These rolls were so pretty! I can make them when I get home. Look, flowers!!! Mine are on the left.

On Sunday I went to church and then went down to Yokosuka with my host family. The plan was to go horseback riding, but it was too rainy so we ended up getting lunch, shopping, and then going to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Yokohama. My host parents got me a cute shirt too! (It was a buy-two-for-a-lower-price kind of deal and they were already buying one so I pretty much had to pick one out.) Ruan, from Brazil, also came along for dinner because he had called me asking to hang out and everyone else was busy so my host mom invited him to join us.

This is my host dad's horse. I forgot the horse's name though...

Me, Ruan, and Manato

On Monday after school I went to the grocery store with Manato and we made chocolate-chip cookies together.

Yesterday (Tuesday) school got out after lunch like Tuesdays usually do and I came home and changed my clothes. Then I went to Yokohama to meet my Calligraphy teacher, Morita-sensei and calligraphy classmates. The class is only me and two other girls so Morita-sensei took us out for Okonomi-yaki. It was so nice of her! We all had a really good time and we even took purikura. I am pretty sure that was a first for my teacher.

Arisa, Mika, Abbey, and Morita-sensei

Arisa, Sensei, Abbey, Mika (I decorated this picture!)

Today I just had school and then went to the gym. Phew, all caught up! :-)

Rotary Graduation

This post was written a few days after the graduation meeting. I am finally getting it up now.



On June 20th I had my Rotary Graduation. It was also my last district level rotary meeting. Except for the Mt. Fuji trip, which isn't really a meething. There is one last orientation meeting on July 3rd, but I will be in Hokkaido with my host family.

Tateno family. Papa, Me, Okasan, and Manato

The graduation felt like such a formal ending, but I still have over a month left. It was still nice though. All the inbounds gave our last speeches (except ones for school and rotary club meetings) Then we recieved these nice honorary diplomas. They played a slideshow of all the pictures the rotarians took of us through the year. That was really fun. It seems like so long ago that we were at those Japanese lessons and not understanding a word people said to us. Our teachers from that first week also came. It must have been pretty cool for them to see how much we have learned since then.

The incredibly akward moment when the Japanese person goes to shake the foreigners hand and the foreigner bows. Hand meets face.

All of my host families came too. It was really nice to see them all again.

Nakano Family. Mie, Masato, Me, Wataru, Toru.

Wataru, Toru, and Me.

Umezaki Family. Papa, Abbey, Mama, and my rotary president, Mr. Inukai.

After the meeting there was a little party with food and very few chairs so you had to go socialize with other people. It was a nice opportunity to talk to people and lots of pictures.

I love Katja!

Yay America!! Vincent, Maki-chan, Ota-kun, Abbey. (Inbounds from America and Outbounds to America)

Before the meeting my host mom brought me to the salon to get my hair cut a little bit and curled. I felt so pretty. (>.<) I just love getting dressed up. After the meeting was over the exchange students went to take purikura with our Rotary blazers. It was fun. Then we wandered around Yokohama and Sakuragichou for a while before heading home.

Katja, Sylvana (from Germany--not rotary), Vincent, Korn, Ruan, I can't tell who is hiding in the back, and Abbey!

The 20th was also the 10 month mark for me being in Japan. I am still so amazed at how many awesome opportunities I have had and how much I have learned. I have done more than I thought possible to do in 10 months. Going on an exchange has been an experience of a lifetime and I wouldn't give up this experience for anything. There isn't even a way to put it into words; it is just something you have to experience to understand

I am excited to see what the rest of my time in Japan has in store for me, but I am sad to see it come to an end. I am happy to be going home, but I don't want to leave. I want to see my friends and family in America, but I don't want to say goodbye to my families and friends here. Sometimes it is hard for me to know how I feel about it all. I try to think of it as two separate things: leaving Japan, and returning to America. Sometimes I just think of it as inevitable that will happen no matter how I feel, so I might as well not think about it at all. It really is a bitter-sweet ending. But the end isn't here yet. I still have over a month left!

Well, I have some pictures to add to this, but blogger won't upload them for me at the moment. I will try again tomorrow if I have time.