Where I stayed for a year - Flora, Indiana

I stayed in Indiana. The town that I stayed in is called Flora. The population is only about 2000 people. So it was a very small town but it had grocery stores and a coffee shop in the town. I could go to a bigger town than the town on the weekend so I could go shopping and watch movies.

Smooth landing

I had an orientation to get used to life in the US for two weeks. It’s called smooth landing. I stayed in Ohio. I had classes to learn about America. Also, I went to the Rock n’ roll hall of fame in Ohio and Niagara falls. I met a lot of people at the orientation , like exchange students from Thailand and teachers for the orientation. I could talk to Japanese exchange students too. I think it was useful because I could be friends with many people.

School life

My school was a public school. The name of the high school is carroll. There were about 400 people from 7th grade to 12th grade in the school so it’s like 12 people in each class. This is my schedule.

My school had 8 periods in a day and it’s the same schedule everyday. It was 45 minutes each class and I had a 4 minute break between classes.

My Favorite Subject

My favorite subject was culinary arts because I like cooking. I had a lot of creating assignments like you make google slides or you make a poster for the assignment. I had homework sometimes but I had study hall and SRT which are time to self study. So I could finish my homework in school.

School events

I had some school events in a year. First, it’s not like an event but they have football games almost every Friday during the football season. The season was from August to October. Many students go to the games so I could make friends there and not only students but also parents and teachers go to watch the games so it was really fun. I had a dance event which is called semi-formal. It’s like you can go with your friends and you can sing and dance with your friends.

I think the biggest event in an American school is prom. Prom is the event for juniors and seniors. I went to prom with my friends and I was asked to go with a boy so I went with him.

I swam during the winter and I played tennis in spring. They change sports for each season in the US so I could play two sports. I had been swimming for 10 years so it was so fun. I had never played tennis before so I was worried about it but I had fun in tennis and I knew that tennis was such a fun sport. My swim team was small so we lost to most of the swim meets but I loved the team because everyone was so kind and they were really fun to be around with. I had about 2 or 3 meets in a week during the swim season. Meets are just my school and 1 or 2 schools. I also had a conference and sectionals. Conference is a meet which some schools participate in. Sectionals are the last meet in the season and about 15 of schools participated in one sectionals. You can imagine a Japanese swim meet for the sectionals. If you got within 16th in the sectionals, you can move on to the finals. I moved on to the finals for backstroke. I was so glad when I moved on to the finals.

For tennis, I had varsity and junior varsity. If you get into the varsity, you can participate in the conference and sectionals. I couldn’t get into varsity tennis so I couldn’t participate in them but I was an alternate. My tennis team was a little big so but they were all close and it was easy to talk to them.

The good thing about American schools is that you have more freedom than Japanese schools, as they almost don’t have school rules. The negative thing is that it’s a little hard to make friends. I take time to make friends so it was a little hard for me. You can make friends easily if you join sports because you can make a lot of time to spend with your friends.

Host family

I had 5 host family members, host mother, host father, older host sister, younger host sister, and host brother who is the same age as me. My older host sister is in college so I didn’t live with her but she sometimes came back home so I could talk to her when she was home. My host mother was a preschool teacher and my host father was a high school teacher. They had a big room for the preschool at home so my host mother was always home. I usually ate dinner with them so I could talk with them and my host family loves watching movies so I watched so many movies with them. My host parents talk a lot so it was so fun to eat dinner with them. My school was only 5 minutes away from the house and my host brother took me and my host sister to the school by his car. I sometimes made Japanese food for them and they loved my Japanese food.

American culture

I didn’t have a culture shock that much so it didn’t take time to adjust to the culture. I got homesick a little bit and it was in October. I felt lonely and I missed home. It was fine to talk to my host mother because she talks kind of slowly but it was hard when I talk to my friends or talk in class because they talk really fast. I liked my host mother’s food and I liked most of the food that I ate in the US but I didn’t like Mexican food and some snacks. I also missed Japanese food a lot.

Similarity and differences

Similarity between Japan and the US is that I can’t use my phone in school. Difference between Japan and the US is that people don’t care about other people in the US but I feel like people care about other people a lot in Japan. I made a lot of Japanese food in the US and I gave my host family some Japanese items like sensu when I got there. People asked me about Japanese schools, and Japanese food. My host family also asked me about anime because my host host siblings like it. I wish I knew about Japanese as a language because I couldn’t explain it well when they asked me to teach them Japanese.

My Personal growth through Study Abroad

I cared about people when I was in Japan and I had some prejudices about people but I met so many people in the US and it went away. I learned a lot of things during studying abroad but the most important thing was that people can be family, friends no matter what if they have kind hearts. I want to know more about different cultures because it was so fun to talk to exchange students from other countries. I can tell people who are debating about going to study abroad about my experience.

Pre-exchange reflections

I had an orientation in April before going to study abroad and I think it was useful because I could learn about the feelings that I would face during studying abroad. I wish I knew more about Japanese culture so I recommend studying Japanese culture before studying abroad.

Advice for my juniors

My advice is that I don’t want you to be afraid of speaking English and talking to people. Also, like I said I think joining sports is the best way to make friends so join sports even if you haven’t played the sport before.