Why did I decide to take this class? Do I like to write? Why or why not?

Firstly, I must apologize for a late start. However, now that things are settled, I hope that I will be able to participate in this semester’s ELP class, develop and learn through meeting new people by communicating with class mates and of coarse, Mark. Or should I call him Mr Christianson? Christianson-sensei? I have to ask him. I also have not done blogs before so I do not know what will happen, but I have a positive feeling about it.

I have many reasons to why I wanted to take this class but I have two main reasons. The first one would be because I feel as though I need to learn more about “myself.” To be honest, I’m confused with myself. I accept myself having 3 backgrounds and I also accept others from what backgrounds they come from because that is how they are and that is there own identity. However, in this people full- packed environment in Japan, there are so many trends and waves of what is popular. I guess this is called “集団主義”or　“集団行動.”There is this culture?(I’m not so sure if I can call it culture) of “sameness” in Japan and people react, move the same, mainly from what the media gives us. I think it is a great thing to do same things with people and I do not want to be negative about it. However, I think it is important to think and look inside what you feel, and question yourself if you really feel that way. I’m slightly afraid that I’m becoming unaware with my feelings but I know that learning yourself and accepting your identity is one of the most important themes in life for all human beings. I think humans need to know themselves first in order to live life to the fullest, to interact with others. Communication is said to be important in this world and I agree because “humans live through humans.” Even if you are a person who does not like humans, he or she has got to accept the fact that they are going to be dealing with humans for the rest of their life unless they choose to live in some other place that I can’t really imagine…My point is, even though communication is important, it does not develop when you don’t know “yourself.” You can’t speak with others if you don’t know yourself first. For instance, when you have to write up a resume to jobs or when you have to have an interview with a company, you really need to know yourself in order to introduce yourself comfortably. I think it’s the same with interacting with friends, families or teachers, basically anywhere. Even if you are a person who is able to communicate with others without knowing your identity, I think it would be much better and open up new doors if you did know your identity well enough because you can speak up more and exchange your own thoughts with others which will create interesting communications, naturally.

My first reason was long, so I would like to point out the second reason shorter. I simply want to develop my writing skills and English in this class. Although I lived in Australia for a long period of time, I was interested in the Performing Arts and my school was a Performing Arts school. Therefore, academically I was undeveloped because I was the one who was not interested in academics, and then from high school I suddenly moved to Japan, to a private girls school where there is only Japanese education. I think those three years of high school in Japan changed many things for me. I could not read kanji or write Japanese very well so I decide to start from writing kana or katakanas above the all the kanji in my high school textbooks, jotting down the meanings of words I could not understand which was basically most of the words. I did not know why, but I started liking this studying and now that I am in an environment that uses Japan and English at ICU, I want to still keep developing Japanese skills but also English as well though ELP classes.

The answer to “Do I like to write?” is not very clear for me. More than half of my life, I expressed myself though playing the piano or dancing and I have still not yet expressed things through words much. However, as I am writing this blog, I am enjoying myself and I want to be able to express more in detail. So, the answer to that question will maybe be clear by the end of this semester…?

I hope I will be able to find, experience new things and develop myself with my class mates too. 宜しくお願い致します。