Update from LA!

Email me at racheCorn@yahoo.com, I'll talk to you soon!

Hannichi Homestay 2013

Hello everyone! Yesterday myself and three other students spent half the day (hannichi) at the home of a Japanese family living here in Oregon, speaking only in Japanese the entire time. It was a lot of fun but really hard, I'm glad I went. Our family, the Kubota family, consisted of Mama, Papa, Little Brother (7), Big Brother (13), and a Japanese exchange student studying at PSU. They were all super welcoming and I felt so comfortable with them that it was hard to leave when the time came; because they were so welcoming I was able to practice my Japanese without being too scared.

Kubota Family

Pre-Departure Freak Out!

Okay, I'm not really freaking out, but I am realizing how much I actually have to do now. This is the last week of first semester and boy am I glad that I'll only be in school a few more weeks, there's a lot going on and I think it'd be hard to juggle everything.

Another nice thing recently was my Pre-Departure Orientation (PDO) that happened on Saturday in Vancouver. It was cold and almost sunny, but I got to hang out with other AFSers from the area and talk about going on exchange. There were five of us there, each with a parent (or two), and while most of them were going to Latin America, there was one girl going to Japan! Her name is Tala and she's very friendly, so we got to chat and dispel some of our fears. Even talking with other kids about it was amazing, everyone was so friendly and there was a lot of laughter.

A common thread though was our parent's fears. Lots of them were worried about safety and how we'd fit in where we stay (also, how we might eat our hosts out of house and home!) One of the projects we did was make collages of our Fears & Expectations, it was a lot of fun and a nice creative way to open us up. Here's my collage:

There's a lot going on here!

I realized that I'm really worried about my sleep habbits and how being a night owl here will affect me on the other side of the world, hence the cat that glows in the dark. Some of my other fears are about the things I don't like (the pug) and how I'll adapt, the difference in scenery (haystack rock), and my child's level of Japanese (as represented by an actual Japanese child's notebook.) BUT! Never fear (haha), I do have some expectations! The little nesting doll represents all my different traits and abilities that will bloom because of this exchange, how I hope to learn my own balance of delicacy and strength (mona lisa's hands & the rice crispies bicep), and how I'm going to be a glow in the dark kitten! It was an interesting task and we were all worried about not fitting in, so I think introspection is a great idea.

The best part of the day was probably when we ate lunch with students that are being hosted here. Tala and I sat with the two Japanese boys, another kid from our group, and a boy from Iceland. It was a great lunch and talking about our experiences, I was really nervous though and ended up not speaking a lot of Japanese. It was really interesting to hear what they had to say about people here in the Pacific Northwest and how it's so different from their home.

Everything about Saturday made me super excited for March, and now that there's only 49 days left until I fly to L.A. for Gateway Orientation it all feels much more real.