Full of delicious sushi.

I just had sushi as a pre-birthday celebration, so I'm feeling pretty good right now. Nothing like eating sushi off of the conveyor belt. The only problem is that I end up eating way too much, but I figure that this was probably my last time having it off of a conveyor belt for a while.

I realized recently that this blog turned into more of a diary than anything else, so I'm sorry if you guys have come to learn about Japanese culture and instead get a play-by-play of my life. I'll try to put a bit more of that in this post.

On Monday I had my last Sadou-bu (Tea ceremony club) session.... or whatever you'd call it. To sum up, it was pretty great. Anyone that goes to that school would do well to join it, because the people in that club are just so wonderful. I haven't even been in that club for that long, but we had a Going Away party type thing. Not a conventional one, of course; it's Sadou after all, but I got to do tea ceremony all by myself for everyone. I also invited a friend and they got to see me make some tea. Sounds boring, but it's intricate stuff that's actually really interesting to watch. I ended up performing about as perfectly as I could have, I'm happy to say. I think I forgot to tell everyone that they could start eating their mochi, but other than that, it was pretty good. I'm really mad, though, because I forgot my camera at home that day and so I couldn't take any pictures. -____- I would do something like that. My friend took pictures with her iPhone but when she sent them they ended up really little and I'm not sure that there's a better way to send them. :/ At the end of it all, I gave my gift (a bunch of friendship bracelets I'd slaved over that week) and said my speech. And then everyone surprised me by giving me presents. Like, for real, what is this? I totally wasn't expecting it. My teacher gave me this super pretty bag and coin purse that, whether it was cheap or not, looked anything but.

Then I got some sakura mochi (pink mochi with a white anko bean filling) from some second year, and some of the cake that the first years brought back from their school trip to Tokyo last week. Someone also gave me a stuffed animal (a sheep...) that smells like sakura. It's an air freshener, I'm assuming? And the one that I think I appreciated the most was a letter a first year wrote me (in English!). She even called me Ellie-sempai which she always does but it was especially cool to see it written next to my name.

Best club ever. Somehow I managed to not cry (I tend to not really realize I'm leaving until the day of), but I did get very melancholy when we were leaving.

Tuesday (aka yesterday), Andres and I had to give speeches to the first and second years (the third years were.... if you said 'studying', you were right!). Mine went alright. I messed up a bit at the end, but it's fine. We got really pretty flowers.

My friend also gave a speech (in English) to us basically wishing us well and such. This girl is one of the funniest people I've ever met so it was almost unnerving seeing her so serious. Speeches to guests seems to be something that Japanese schools do on a regular basis. Anytime we've had speakers come and bore us into sleeping sitting up, we've always had a student stand across from them onstage and give some words of thanks.

Today was a normal day. I had my last day of shodou. Again, none of this 'leaving' concept seems to be sinking in. I don't think I've totally wrapped my brain around the fact that I'm leaving soon. Unfortunately that means I'll probably be mistaken for a faucet tomorrow. Pretty much directly after getting home, the entire Hattori household (minus the dog) piled into the car and went out for sushi! My host father has a work party tomorrow so we couldn't go then (for my birthday), so we went today. Hey, whatever. I got my sushi! Tomorrow we'll have cake, though. And I get to pick what okaa-san makes for dinner... which I still haven't decided...

I'm going to go back in time for a second. On Sunday, AFS had a Farewell Party for everyone leaving on the 3rd of February. I had to give a speech there too. I was the only one that had known beforehand, so I was the only one to have already written my speech. Ironically enough, I felt kind of uncomfortable rather than relieved I was prepared. It went alright. We ate, gave our host mothers flowers (that AFS gave us to give to them...), took a group picture,

and then everyone left. I ended up going to machi with my friends (that's where I always hang out when I say downtown), which involved purikura (of course), and karaoke. My last karaoke! T_T

That's the latest. I'll try to update before I leave. That one probably won't be too long since I'll be getting ready...

OFJIERJVNOPGKTOKO
-Ellie