Okonomiyaki, etc...

Monday Seo and I met for Okonomiyaki and a spontaneous trip to Mojiko. He wanted to do "sticker shashin," to which I obliged. The weather was a bit hot, but the sky was that lovely blue. A very beautiful day.

(heart)

Yukata Party

Goodbyes

Junko had me for dinner with her family.

Momoko (on the right) will be fluent in English one day. I am certain of it.

Mayuko and I met for sushi and goodbyes.

Final Day at 菊川中学校

A few days later, Seo came over and made me Korean salad. Then, the knife disappeared!

I am holding my shirt because I spilled something on myself.

Oh how I wish he would fit into my suitcase and could come home with me.

Becky's Housewarming Party, Sushi, and the Aquarium

岡枝小学校のスピーチ

It's been a rough week of farewells. I said goodbye to all of my town elementary schools. Today I said bye to the one who has meant the most to me, Okaeda. They have been my pet school, of sorts, the one where I did the Halloween Day and baked Christmas cookies. Even the bratty 4th graders were good for me. During the 5th period, they had a farewell ceremony for me. Hopefully some folks will e-mail me some photos of the day to post at a later time. At the end, I made the following speech:

みなさん、こんにちは．２年間私は菊川に住み、岡枝小学校で教えてきました．２年間はあっとゆう間でした．アメリカにもどり、家族に合えるのは、とてもうれしいです．でも、日本を離れ、菊川のすばらしい人たちとわかれるのは、とても悲しいことです．みなさんを教えるのは、とても楽しかったです．私を通して、みなさんが英語やアメリカの文化について、少しでも勉強できたことがあれば、とてもうれしいです．私に日本の文化や日本語を教えてくれて、ありがとう．

菊川に来て、私の生活は大きくかわりました．私の世界が大きく広がリました．菊川のことは、わたしの心のなかから、きえません．みなさんの笑顔は、決して、わすれません．これからも、がんばってください．そして、つぎのALTの先生にも、私のときのように、親切で元気にせっしてください．本当に、今まで、ありがとうございました．みなさん、お元気で．

Granted one of my junior high JTEs helped me translate this speech from English to Japanese a few weeks ago, but I think it's rather amazing that I was able to read all of this in Japanese considering I came only knowing one Japanese word [こんにちは]. It's really easy to get frustrated about all the Japanese we don't know. But I think we should focus on the progress that we make and the things that we do know instead of all that we don't know (which is a lot and can get very overwhelming at times!)

It went very well. I started to get choked up a bit when I said how I will never forget their smiles. And when I finished I saw the female teachers brushing their tears away, but I didn't look at them and was fine. I did lose it a bit afterwards when I was by myself. But overall, the day went very well. I was touched by all the students' messages and their kind little hearts.

Let's learning J-Pop song!

I've always wanted to learn a Japanese song for karaoke. No time like the present, ne? Here is my song of choice, a classic from the 90s that all my office members will know. It's a love song, but the last line says something to the effect of "Someday I hope to meet you again in this place." Touching, indeed. I have at least one more time to practice before my office enkai next Friday. Let's studying! Oh, and I apologize to those who heard my poor rendition of it on Monday night. But hey, it's a work in progress.

日本語のクラス Party