I can`t believe that tomorrow`s our last day of school.  I`m so sad.  Today we`re going to have lunch with the Intensive English Program students (a.k.a Katsu and Shohei), which should be fun.  Me and Shohei have been e-mailing each other back and forth and we agreed that I`d help him with his English and he`d help me with my Japanese.  Turns out he wants to be a high school English teacher.  Together, we could be the ultimate teaching team of wonder!!!  Haha.  At any rate, I`m really sad about having to leave, everyone here is so awesome.  Friday, a bunch of us are getting together after they`re all done class and we`ll be going bowling and eating dinner.  I think I`m going to bring my video camera for that.

 

Last night, Noriko-san and her friend helped me put on my yukata and taught me how to do it myself.  Then we did the tea ceremony.  There are so many little things to it that I was aware of before and it`s actually really complicated.  I liked it a lot though.  Then we went to the house of the mother of Noriko-san`s friend.  OMG!  SO BEAUTIFUL!  It`s Japanese-style and the garden was gorgeous.  They have this beautiful gold shrine and I got a picture taken of me in my yukata in the garden.  She said she`s going to sew me a miniature kimono, which is SO nice of her.  Noriko-san and I stayed up till about 12 looking at websites of universities in the Kansai area because I think I want to come back and study for a year so that my Japanese will actually improve a lot.  I really like the Kansai dialect...Osaka-ben is hilarious.  My last post`s title had some in it (Meccha...めっちゃ).  That means "very" in Osaka-ben.  Nan de ya nen is funny too ("What the hell!?").  So yeah, I`d prefer to be in this region if I were to come back.

 

I still have to buy souvenirs, which I`ll probably do tonight or tomorrow while we`re waiting for everyone to finish class.  We have a farewell party with the teachers and our study pals in the afternoon then we`re done.  We have to give a speech, which I haven`t started yet...maybe I should do that.  Anyways, bye for now!  I`ll be home soon!

 

-Sharon