Seiritsu International Education

During the summer holidays I went back to Australia to renew my visa, which took much longer that I originally expected so it was a good thing I was there the whole month. The good news is, the visa is now long enough for me to stay here for the next six months. In the mean while I managed to catch up with family and friends as well as doing various activities.

While my life in Japan was exciting it was also exhausting going full blast [Peter Sensei: 'full blast' is an Australian term for as 'hard as you can'] all the time so having a rest was good. One of the things I noticed while living in Japan was that everyone is extremely fit. From taking public transport, to doing sports after school everyday, I may have been fit in Australia but compared to everyone in Japan I wasn’t even close. So during the holidays I started going to the gym every other day to build up my endurance so that I’ll be able to withstand the next six months here. I have yet to test my progress but I hope that I’m stronger enough now to endure my Kendo teacher’s expert attacks!

One of the other things I had on my list was to study more Japanese, but of course that never happened. Why did I set myself such a ridiculous goal? Studying in the holidays- what a crazy idea! However that didn’t stop me doing other Japanese things, I managed to meet up with an old friend of mine who was having a movie marathon where we watched two days worth of Studio Ghibli movies. Watching more anime, who would have thought (hehehe)! I also had a Sushi Party too; my friends and I use to have ‘Japanese Days’ where we made sushi, which tasted really bad and watched anime together. So before I returned to Australia from Japan I asked my home stay mum to teach me how to make proper sushi, the Japanese way so that we could try it at home and... it worked! This may not seem like such a big deal to most people but this was a great accomplishment for all of us. I really enjoyed meeting up and hanging out with my friends again.

Another thing I did was go the art gallery. For a while I was having an creative block and I found it hard to draw so my granny and I went to the art gallery to look at the exhibits. The artworks there were amazing; they varied from simple ink washes of people doing ordinary things to stunning paintings brimming with colour which drew the audience into the work. Going to the gallery really helped inspire me to keep creating. Instead of focusing on drawing like I usually do, my granny (AKA my assistant) and I went into the city to take photos together, which was really fun.

Overall I’m glad that I went home for those few weeks. It allowed me to clear my head and unwind. We also have some new exchange students so now I won’t be as lonely as before. I’m ready to give it my all and become a master of Japanese! Well that’s my goal for now, so wish me luck!

Jessica

writer: staff  date: 11:17 AM | Life at Seiritsu

Hello!

My name is Panisa Chitwattana-aree. You can call me Pop. I am 17 years old. I come from Thailand. I live in Bangkok which is the capital of Thailand. I like everything about Japan and I want to be even stronger in Japanese and that’s the reason I want to stay a year abroad in Japan. I like J-pop very much and I have a lot of Japanese songs on my iPod (: I’ve heard that in Japan there are a lot of large places to go shopping like Shibuya, Harajuku and Shinjuku and I want to go there as much as possible :D

I want to be friends with everyone ,so korekara yoroshiku onegaishimasu!

writer: staff  date: 11:11 AM | Life at Seiritsu

Hello. My name is Nicolas, I’m 16 years old、I'm from Stenloese, which is a town in Denmark, about 30 minutes from Copenhagen.

In my spare time I play soccer or just hang out with friends. Right now I don’t really read manga but my host brother reads a lot of manga and talks about it all the time, so I think I’m going to read manga as well, and it’s a more fun way to get confident with hiragana, katakana and kanji instead of sitting and working in a textbook for hours.

I recently finished middle school, and didn’t want to start at a Danish high school straight away, so I decided to study abroad for a year.

The reason why I chose Japan is that I got family here, my uncle moved out here 20 years ago, and is now married to a Japanese woman and has 3 kids. Another reason why I chose Japan is that it is not common in Denmark to be able to speak Japanese, so it might be able to help me to get some great jobs in the future. So my “school goals” are to be good at talking and writing/reading Japanese, and to improve my English, because the school offers high level English as well.

One thing I especially like about Japan is that the trains always are on time, in Denmark the trains are about 10 minutes late all time. Last year I went to Japan on holiday, but that was only as a tourist, so I didn’t understand anything at all. But now I have been studying Japanese for about a year, and it’s totally different because now I’m paying attention to all the commercials on the trains and sometimes I can even understand them.

I’m looking forward to having an awesome year at Seritsu Gakuen!
Nicolas Kjeldsen.

writer: staff  date: 10:27 AM | Life at Seiritsu

Hello
My name is Gabriel Levander (call me Gabu) and I am a foreign student from Karlstad, Sweden.

I am 18 years old and was originally going to come to Japan this March, however because of the earthquake I couldn’t go but got the chance this summer instead. I have studied Japanese for only 1 year but I do like it a lot! I came to Japan because I am interested in the culture and history of Japan.

I like football and tennis particularly, but like any kind of sport. So in my year in Japan I would like to try out many kinds of sports and learn more about the history and experience traditional Japanese culture such as temple visiting, etc. But to not make the boring part too long I also would like to make friends and try out karaoke!

So I am reeeaaalllyyyy looking forward to having a great year in Japan!

See ya guys! Gabu

writer: staff  date: 10:24 AM | Life at Seiritsu