Hey all,

So, anyone who is considering doing study abroad in the future, I highly recommend it, and I also recommend that you go for en entire year.  A single semester is just too short! Recently, I've been discussing this with other exchange students who are only here for a semester and they agree.  It just feels like you are counting down the days as soon as you get here.  Lately, I have been feeling really rushed, and that I just am not going to have enough time to do everything I want to do! In addition to this, my Japanese has been getting a lot better, but by the time I leave it is not going to be at the level I would like.  A year here would definitely get me a lot closer to that goal.

Unfortunately, the prospect of staying another semester here in Japan would delay my graduation from UH at least another year, due to the Japanese semester start/finish dates not lining up with schools in the States.  And yeah, I am already a super senior so the general line of thought is that I need to go back and finish school.  I have been exploring options in which I can come back to Japan for an extended period of time post graduation, for example the JET program.  Let's hope it can work out!

On another note, my trip to Nagoya last weekend was a lot of fun! I had some very interesting experiences being the only native English speaker in my group.  Needless to say, it was great practice for my Japanese speaking.  However, I have noticed lately that my listening/comprehension is very far behind my speaking.  This is probably because I will want to practice Japanese, so I will speak to my friends in Japanese, but they want to practice English, so they will end up responding in English.  After that, if I say "Nihongo dake kudasai" (Japanese only please) they will speak to me in Japanese, but its hard for me to pick up a lot of what they say, so they explain themselves in English (and then speak in English after that) and thus the whole "nihongo dake" thing goes out the window.  I don't blame them, I would probably do the same back in the states.

But, it was a great experience nonetheless!