Update :)

I feel as if eons have passed since my last update on this blog… but, in case any of you out there are worried, I am fine, alive and very happy. 🙂

Midterm tests are over and it is already time to gear up for the next round of tests, coming up in a few weeks. I did not do as horribly as I thought on these tests and next time I strive to do even better. Yet before I can put myself entirely into my studies, I have to complete the seemingly endless process of filling out my college applications.

I do not know what finally convinced me to complete my college applications from Japan. I may have realized that even though I was stressed and busy, filling out college applications was not going to hurt me, or it may have been because the prospect of starting college just months after arriving home from Tokyo had become more and more alluring to me. Challenging classes at my Japanese school have made me quenched for more knowledge and learning, something I have no doubt in gaining at a university.

Whatever the reason, I have spent the past month communicating back to my school counselor in America in order to fill out my application, sending emails to teachers at my high school back home pleading for recommendation letters, contacting one English teacher at my present Japanese school for one as well, sending out my ACT scores and finally, writing and re-writing application essays. The last one on the list turned out to be the most strenuous and stressful. Whenever I sat down to write, the pressure coming from the knowledge that I must write the best essay of my life, that describes my whole existance caused me to be constantly let down by my writing. I would write a paragraph then scrap it, write another, scribble it out, and on and on until all of the built up frustration came to a maximum.

But thanks to a suggestion from my Aunt Terra, who told me to just write out all that I wanted to say in a draft that we could always change and make better later, I somehow was able to finish my main essay.

Yet the tiresome process of writing my college application essays has made it clear to me that my English is faltering a bit. Departing a bilingual environment to come to a strictly Japanese-speaking one has had some effects on me. Though my Japanese speaking, writing and reading have reached amazing levels, I am, at the same time, losing my English ability. When I try to write, for instance, I am unable to fully express myself, since English words do not pop up convieniently like they used to in America.

To combat my loss of English, I have began an epic quest to read all of the Harry Potter series books. I remember being not a big fan of fantasy in America, but for some reason, once I started reading these books, I could not put them down. This has become almost a problem, since I have had to stop myself many times from reading it during class… I have since completed the third book and will check out the fourth tomorrow, but thanks to these books, I have sensed a recovery of my faltering English. Not only that, but my dreams have become quite interesting…

Sadly, that is all now for this post, since I must get back to my college essays…

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I am a bit depressed that I cannot be home for the holidays. But I am looking forward to the Japanese New Year! 🙂