一月

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

― Dr. Seuss 

January seems to be the month to be in. Besides everything that I wrote about in my last blog I have also participated in a Japanese speech contest, was a part of せいじんしき, attended a Rotary Club meeting, played soccer, went to aikido, volunteered, and met Jamie.

The speech contest was held at the number one school in Osaka, きたのこうこう (Kitanokoukou- Kita High School). To put it in the best way possible lets just say that I was the only one in the Japanese speech contest that hadn't studied for over two years. The wonderful thing about the contest was that once the speeches were done a band, a club at the school, came out and preformed jazz music! It brought back memories of the good old Northfield Swing Dance. Also, for giving a speech I received gift cards to a book store!

せいじんしき (seijinshiki) is literally translated "Adult Ceremony". It is a ceremony for all of the kids who turn 20 this year and become legal adults in Japan. My host sister turned 20 in September, thus participated in this traditional ceremony. The girls all get dressed up in kimonos and the boys in suits. They get to go all dressed up and listen to a special speech given by the mayor. *It also just so happened that is snowed a lot that day,  unfortunate for the girls.

I attended a Rotary Club meeting, which isn't all that unusual because I have a meeting at least once a month. What was special about this meeting is that it was at the first time I didn't have to give a formal speech in front of my entire club. I had to give a little self introduction in Japanese before dinner because we had a couple of new people joining us (soon to be outbounds!) but that was it. I truly got to just enjoy the dinner, meeting, and talk with the exchange students.

My grade had a mini sports festival for just my grade. Guess what we got to play.... SOCCER! It was wonderful to be able to play again, even though it was on a small field with little goals and only for 3 minute rounds. So the set up of the soccer game was different but the point is that I got to play soccer for a little bit and I had an amazing time doing it. My class won both of our games meaning that we get to play in a sort of finals next week.

This is what happens when you join aikido. I noticed the red cuts and bruises on my shoulders before but I just connected it with aikido and all of the うけみ (ukemi- rolling) we do during our practices. So, aikido, soccer, basketball (one gym class), and running (another gym class) left me feeling pretty sore this last week. The good news is that I kind of like that feeling because it shows that I am actually being active!




Valentina invited me to volunteer with her. So, on Sunday we help elementary kids decorate little jewelry boxes (mostly girls). We also helped a different group of kids tear apart old electronics (computers, phones, Thomas the Train toys) and rebuild them into something else like little decorative robots (mostly boys).

Then we went out for cake afterwards! We also received gift cards to a book store for volunteering.







On Monday I met Jamie, the new Rotary Exchange Student from Australia. She is attending my school but she is ichinensei (first year- the youngest grade). She seems very sweet and it will be fun to have another exchange student around, especially since my good friend Mark will be done working at the school in February.

*I just found out that I will have a second host family and that I move to my new house the first week of March!

Sayonara from Osaka, Japan.