During class, Sagawa-sensee, my Japanese teacher, told the class in passing that there will be a club meeting between Japanese exchange students and UCR students studying Japanese and that it would be a great chance to practice what we have learned. Of course, I'm interested, how often out of school will I get the chance to practice my Japanese with a native speaker? Surprisingly, not often, but it's only the third week of school! At 4o'clock today I went to meeting room, and to be honest I was expecting much and I sure wasn't happy because first off my last class of the day ended at 3 and I trekked 20 minutes from the class room, a movie theatre, past a highway, and up a hill in 100 degree weather -.-. As if that wasn't treacherous enough, to get to the club meeting spot, I would have to make the same trek back down the hill, past the freeway, and back near the movie theatre in 100 degree weather. I wasn't in the best mood, but I stuck with it and I am oh so glad I did ^.^.
I was nervous at first when I waled into the room and I saw all these students seated and talking among themselves. To my right I heard strings of fluent Japanese, absolutely beautiful, and to my left, mostly English with a dash of Japanese. Everyone was comfortable, laughing and joking together looking like old friends, I had gone alone to the event, but I did see someone from my class. I sat on the left as instructed and turned to my sides to make conversation, there is no point in sitting there stoically when the whole point of the meeting is to socialize. Fast-forwarding a bit, the club representative explained the rules. We were to play a game of sorts. On the table are note cards strewn face down on the table, each with a name written on them. We, the UCR students, are to choose a card and find the person whose name is written on the note card and introduce ourselves and start talking. Simple, right? I thought so.
I was so nervous. I kept going over in my head everything that I learned so that I could impress ちえみ and of course when we met the only thing that I could remember was はじめまして and how to say my name. Talk about epic failure, of all times for my mind to go blank, but it's okay ちえみ rolled with it and she made me comfortable. We started talking and realized that we had a lot in common. Despite being from the opposite ends of the world we had a lot in common and we didn't run out of things to talk about. She helped me more than I helped her lol. Talking with her in my broken Japanese and her fluent English motivated me. Before our encounter, I was happy to go along with the pace in class, but now I want to know more sot hat the next time I meet ちえみ, I won't be speaking as broken Japanese as I am now. I guess that is all it takes, one person, one thing, one experience to get you motivated, to inspire yourself. I am glad that I made the 20 minute trek to the Extension Center for the club meeting.
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