Whew, I really needed some time like this, just sitting at a cafe, sipping a cup of coffee, browsing internet, and updating my blog post. Since this August, it seems like I have been always swamped with grading, homework, exams and the preparation for my Japanese class, and I need to admit that it has been a bit too overwhelming. At the same time, it is hard to believe that it's mid November already and that this semester is close to end.
I just finished my linguistics exam today, and I feel like I can finally breathe. I completely bombed it last time, so I needed to do better this time. I studied until 3am last night, cramming morphology terms into my head and drawing syntactic trees on the notebook. By the time my right arm got almost numb from writing so much, I stopped everything I was doing and found myself suddenly starting to feel that this very state being very so precious. Teaching Japanese at college and going to grad school was something that I had always dreamt of, and look at me, I am doing exactly what I'd longed for, for a long time. I took a while for this to become reality, but I am convinced now that dreams tend to come true as long as I don't give up.
I truly enjoy teaching. My students never cease to amaze me by their improvement and unthinkable and creative mistakes. I am still thrilled when I am called "Ishikura-sensei." I feel extremely happy when students ask me which section I will be teaching next semester, because they want to take "my" class! I am so proud that my students who did not even know hiragana at the beginning of the semester now know how to say and write "There is a cat underneath the table." They know more than 10 Kanji's too. When I am teaching, I feel the happiness that I have never experienced.
I just realized the beautiful sunset outside the window. It's Friday tomorrow! I should do something fun with my friends. I haven't mentioned about my new friends at grad school on my blog yet, so I will have to create one post just about them, because I am surrounded with so many lovely friends here, which I am absolutely grateful for. Life is good, still good, and it will continue to be good. Wow, it's getting dark quickly after the daylight saving time ended last week. I should head back home now. More later!
