First thing's first, we get up at 5:30 in the morning to leave extremely early for Sendai. We all slept heavily on the Shinkansen because of that. Once there, we met the vice principle and took the bus to the school in the countryside. Sensei was caught off guard when we were told that we had to visit high school students in the international school first, before seeing the elementary school students to give the gifts from Nihonmachi Little Friends. The students were all welcoming, sharing their stories about their experience of the earthquake last year.
Then we got a little treat. They gave us school uniforms to wear! We all loved the way it looked, but we couldn't keep them:( very sad.....
All morning I was flat-out nervous. I was hungry before lunch, and felt sick to the stomach afterwards like never before. I was anticipating this moment for so-long, so I wanted it all to go perfectly. I calmed down when I stepped into the room, because the number of students looked less than what we were told (90ish). I go on with my speech alongside Chris, which went unexpectedly well. After that we sang our song, which I personally think went successfully. The students clapped to the rhythm so they seemed to enjoy it. We had two unexpected students come up and join us for the song, but they were pretty silent and went on to sing another song for us after that. (they seemed very unprepared...) then we had our group presentations, which could have gone better.. The problem was that mostly everything was presented in English including the questions. They had a hard time answering it, because they weren't listening well enough(?). Overall, we gave the students a lot of laughs, which I felt great about in the end, regardless of how badly we presented.
After we were all done, we headed off to our respected clubs. Anna, Jennifer, and I had karate/ English club, which was full of guys that just began karate (they never practice during club meetings) I did karate for a few years under the teachings of my own dad, so I was familiar with the technique required. For the next hour and a half or so, we were doing exercises, punches and kicks intensely. My face was drenched in sweat the whole time, which felt good actually. We went to get water very frequently, because the teacher was really understanding. He had great form, and demonstrated a kata (a sequence of movements) for us. Afterwards I meet my host student very briefly, before we all left for the hotel.
I had fun all day, even when I was nervous. I'm sure we all did, and will look forward to tomorrow. We will head off to the devastated areas in the area alongside the host students, which should be fuuuun. Our trip is coming to a close, so why not have a grand finale that that makes this all the more memorable?
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