In short

I love:

•My family
•Everyone I have encountered
•Understanding parts of news segments and comedy skits
•Picking plums from our tree and eating them fresh
•Dreaming in Japanese
•Having the world at my fingertips

I'm fortunate to not have a list labled "I hate...". Hate is such a strong and offensive word especially when you've been offered your dream on a silver platter. Adopt the AFS saying "Not right, Not wrong, Just different" and you will encounter very few problems. I encourage student exchange to those with open minds and who have passion to learn and explore. Despite the fact that I've gotten into a routine with school, home and club; to me, Japan is still this wonderful, eye-opening country where I have learnt not only so much about the people, culture, language and mannerisms but also about myself. Three months has almost passed and I couldn't be happier as to where I am now and what I have achieved, seen and done.    

I've done:

•Been to a baseball game with my school
•Rode on my bike along highways and up hills with my basket overflowing with onions and potatos picked by myself and the volunteering club at a farm
•Assisted teachers preparing for their "Australian-based" English lessons
•Met more people from around the world including Germany, Finland, America and Brazil
•Travelled down the Chikugo River on a boat steered by a singing, old man using a bamboo poll
•Aced my in-class soroban exam with a 96%
•Went to a shrine and prayed for my Accounting teachers' 11 year old boy
•Helped my sister prepare for her AFS exams. She's wanting to travel to Australia for one year
•Become apart of the classroom and do geography, English and math homework like everyone else
•Have written down goals and drawn a study plan to continue to motivate myself to study Japanese and prepare for JLPT and soroban exams
•Watched the fields of barley turn from green to gold only to be soon   burnt and flooded immediately to grow rice
•Got lost going home from the post office. Loved it! Found some cute stores and tried out my direction skills in Japanese 
•Begun thinking in Japanese

Written goals are important. You can visually see what you're working towards instead of losing those thoughts in everyday life. I've only just done this recently. I've been so swept up in life of going to school and spending time with my family that I realised I have neglected Japanese study. Although I've been learning without the help of study (yes, you can get by and learn without study) I reminded myself WHY I wanted Japan. "To significantly improve my Japanese". With that goal in mind, I needed to begin studying a lot more than I have been.   

Summer holidays begin soon and I'm very excited! :) 
•Going to club frequently
•Making lammingtons
•AFS camp in Miyasaki
•Two day family trip to some onsens
•Studying
•Hanging out with friends 
•Chilling with family
•Shopping for some cute summer clothes 

Have been thinking a lot recently about everything and life.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I want to be a doctor."..."I want to work in a zoo."
Me?
"When I grow up I want to be happy."
I've grasped the fact that in life it is better to be happy and poor rather than rich and against the world. I'm deciding upon career choices based soley around my interests and strengths. Money's not important if I'm happy just waking up every morning wanting to go to work.
Also love. I think I'm more tolerent and understanding of peoples choices and feelings. One can not control what they feel so you shouldn't judge them. I want to be able to love freely without having to worry about what people think. I think everybody does. If people were more accepting there wouldn't be that second voice inquiring what other people are thinking.  

Love=Love
Happiness=Happiness

I think too much sometimes. I know some of my friends know this too. But I can't help sometimes thinking of next year. It's a big year and I want to try and prepare for it. I'll be missing the first week or so of school and grade 12 is so important. I figure if I can learn AT LEAST all of JLPT N4 grammar, kanji, vocab etc I won't have to worry about Japanese and can focus on Physics, Chem and Maths. Particularly worried about Physics. We don't have any equivalent here, just basic science. I'm hoping to revise some work in the holidays if there's time. 
I know it's next year, but next year isn't too far away at all...

I know I've been slack with the blogs again. I'll try and write another by the end of this month but no promises. Japan is still amazing as ever. I'm sure you could already guess that by now though ;) 

No regrets. Live for the moment!

K x