Graduation

Alex and I then spent literally an entire day packing. It was such a problem, trying to get all of our newly acquired possessions into our suitcases. Even though our flight wasn't for another five days, we needed to send our larger suitcase to the airport, since there was no way we could carry those things around with us, and also because we had to leave our homestay early. Okaasan and Otousan were leaving for Tokyo very early in the morning after our graduation in order to babysit their other two granddaughters, which meant that we had one more night we needed to find a place to stay. When we found that out earlier the week before, we were a bit worried, but luckily our friend Alisa said we could spend the night with her at her host family's house, so we were so relieved and grateful for that. However, that still left the rest of the trip. Mizuho actually went out of town and Yuki had had a surgery and didn't feel up to keeping us occupied, so that meant returning to Tokyo early was not an option. We had actually wanted to go back to Osaka and hang out there a while, and since Miki, Saki, and Mayumi had all seemed eager to hang out again, even saying we could stay at their place, we thought that would be a great option. We had sent them all texts about our situation, but no one responded. We started sending out texts to all of our friends in Japan. No one was answering us. Mind you, this isn't facebook where you can be like, "oh, he just doesn't go online often", no, we are TEXTING them, and they have our number, they know who we are. We believed it was because they either couldn't or didn't want to take us, but didn't want to have to tell us no. Japanese people don't like having to tell people no, which for Westerners can be very frustrating, since we take things at face value and to us it's the speakers' job to convey the message, not the listeners' job to read through the given answers to interpret what you want. When dealing with Westerners, it's best to just say what you mean, even if that's not what you normally do. Of course you can be polite about it, but don't say things just to make them happy. Especially if they ask you "do you understand" and you say yes even when you don't. I have had SO much trouble with that over the years with exchange students from Asian countries. I like to help, and I understand how frustrating it is to not understand what's going on. Yeah, sorry, I had to rant a little about that for like two seconds, but I'm done, I promise. 
Anyway, a week later, Mayumi texted us asking if we meant to stay at a hotel or at her house, which was fairly obvious since Alex wrote "can we stay with you at your house" in the original text, so it seemed like a delay tactic. Alex responded, but Mayumi never answered until the day before we were leaving, which by then we already had other accommodations. We went to Okaasan and asked if we could just go with them to Tokyo, but they weren't staying at their son's apartment, but rather at a nearby hotel, so that would be impossible for us. Okaasan suggested though, that we stay in Moriyama with her other son's family, since Tomoko-san is a teacher and she will be there during the day since it was summer vacation. We arranged to stay with the other Mabuchi family and we booked seats on a night bus to Tokyo and then a hotel in Tokyo at the airport since our flight left at 6:50 am on the 8th. It was like a huge weight was lifted off our chests, and I think we both felt so bad for putting everyone in such an awkward place, but there wasn't really another option, and we were just so glad something worked out.
Once we finally packed everything up, Okaasan and Otousan took us out to dinner to a restaurant that served Chinese dishes. The restaurant was really casual, but the food was really good, and no one really talked much since we didn't have anything to say really, since we'd just been home packing all day. I thought about how it was our last meal together, and I was really saddened by that. But it was really nice.

お母さんとお父さんと最後の食事

The next day we got all dolled up for our graduation and we started to get in the car. Okaasan had us put our bags in the front seat, so I asked where would Otousan sit. She said he wasn't coming, and it was then that it hit me that I was leaving them. I ran out of the car and Alex and I gave Otousan our card and said goodbye to him. He watched us leave, and I was already crying. At school, we all had a run through of what we would do for the ceremony, and I had time to take a few pictures with friends before the host families came in to watch us graduate. We had a speech from our director, who I was not very fond of, and it amused me that he was worse at giving speeches in Japanese than the students were, so haha. Then a representative or two from each level would come up and give a speech. My friends from level one were adorable, and Helen from level two and the guy from level four were very good, but Alex's speech for our level was really something special.

After we had really cute Japanese desserts and drinks and talked and took pictures until we could get our grades. Okaasan tried to leave when we were going to Matsui sensei's office, but I made her promise to stay.

Me, Jeff, and Alex

Level 1 kids' speech

Level 2 speech

Alex, giving level 3's speech

Level 4 speech

The Environmental Science kids' speech

Matsui sensei

Me and Melville sensei

Our fancy desserts :D

三年生！

I was not at all happy with my grade. I swear my teacher was biased. I think she knows I think that too, which makes her even more biased. But my speech was really really good and I only made one mistake total and she gave me a B +. It's not like that's bad, but my speech was really good, and really interesting comparatively. So I ended up with a 3.0, and I was already sad and what not, so this didn't put me in a better mood. And then Okaasan had to go. She tried to just shrug it off like it wasn't a big deal and leave, but Alex and I ran after her and hugged her as we cried, and before long she was crying along with us even though she was telling us not to. Alex asked her to please remember us and she said she could never ever forget us. She left, and soon afterwards Alex and I had to leave too, so we grabbed our duffle bags, said our last goodbyes to our friends, and headed off to Taga with Ivan and Lu.

Mary

Location: My bed in my dorm, where I have been literally all day while writing this.

Mood: sad, because now I'm thinking about saying goodbye to Okaasan (´Д｀。)

Listening to: Never Forget - Gothic Storm

Japanese for the day:　全然分かりません。zenzen wakarimasen. - I don't understand at all.