Welcome to Gami's Blog !!!: March 2006

North Central College
Volume 3 --- March

１　Host Family
In the end of January I asked the International student adviser to find my host family, because I wanted to spend weekends and breaks with an American family. She found a nice host family for me. My host mother’s name is Rose. She is a nice woman and she is like my real mother. We usually meet twice a week. We do various things: cooking, going shopping, practicing English pronunciation, going to the church, etc. She taught me lots of things and helped me a lot. Through my host mother I made many friends of other generations. These days she asked me to do babysitting in her friend’s house. At first I hesitated because I cannot speak English well and I had never done it before. But she recommended it me because she thought that babysitting would be a nice experience for me and I can learn about American family life. The children were 3 and 8 years old girls. I made dinner for them, played with toys, and read stories before they went to bed. It was a nice experiment for me. Like this babysitting experience, after I met her I could do many things that I cannot do only staying on campus and hanging out with my friends. I hope I can tell them about Japanese culture too. I took lots of Japanese traditional stuff from Japan like Origami, Yukata and picture books. Next week I am going to make Sukiyaki for them. I hope I can tell them about the beauty of my country Japan.

２ Spring Break
　My spring break was awesome. I did lots of things. I visited my friends’ house in Ohio, and Indiana. I stayed at my host family’s house and had a home party and babysitting. I visited the famous places of Chicago and watched a Broadway musical called “Wicked”. The break was only 10 days, but it was full break for me. Many other International students spent their break in various ways. One of my Korean friend visited San Francisco, and an other Taiwanese friend visited New York. After the spring break we talked about Naperville where our campus is located. Naperville is very high class society so we think we were looking at the only good part of United States. But when we went to other parts of United States, some places were totally different from Naperville. There were many poor people or gangs and it was dangerous. We were amazed to see these situations and we realized how safe Naperville is. I hope I can see many things and meet many people during my stay in United States.

３　Spring Term
In winter term I took Education, Ceramics, and ESL. This term I am going to take ESL, Speech, Group Process, and Oriental Brush Painting. Winter term was my first term, but I am used to the life so this term I am going to take four classes to challenge myself. I really wanted to take Education classes but all of classes require field work and the content is too specific about the American Education System. Last term I took an education class, general part was very useful for me, but some part like making Portfolio for teacher’s certification I could not attend the activity. And I thought I should improve my English before I take 200 level classes. I want to try educational classes next fall term again.
To take American Educational Class, I realized the different points. At the beginning of the class we learned how to deal with cultural diversity and language diversity. In Japan we have never been told about those kinds of things. I thought this aspect is so American apple pie.

４　I think …
I think I do not know everything about Japan. When I take part in Japanese table I am asked about Japanese culture every time. They asked me why Japanese people say we do not have religion. They asked me the population and area of Iwate, Morioka, and Japan. They asked me the origin of Japanese traditional events like Setsubun, and Hinamatsuri. Every time I cannot give exact answers. When I asked about the population of Chicago or the origin of St. Patrick’s Day, etc to my friends almost all of students can answer. I realized how I do not know about my own country and culture.