My Experience as an International Student in Japan - it's already been 9 months

    I arrived in Yokohama 9 months ago, for the second time. However, the difference between that time and the other times I had visited Japan was that I was here to stay....for at least 4 years. It wasn't a vacation, it was time for university. The first time I would be living alone, and going to university, would be in a country 6,000 miles from my home in the United States. A 14 hour, thousand dollar, plane ride away. If I got homesick, I wouldn't be able to go home. I wouldn't be able to see my family during the holidays. I wondered when I would be able to go home next, if my beloved dog would even remember me when I returned.

    I'm half Japanese, on my father's side, half Italian-American on my mother's. You might think, "Oh, so you can speak Japanese then?"

     Unfortunately, my answer is no. Despite others' expectations, I entered Japan with a lower-than-elementary school grasp of the Japanese language. I still struggle to communicate after taking Japanese classes for 9 months. 

    I was raised in the United States. My father only ever used English with a Japanese accent at home when speaking to my mom, my brothers, and I. The only times I ever heard Japanese were when my dad would watch Japanese movies or recordings of Japanese TV on the internet, and when he would talk to his family or business partners on the phone. He would buy Japanese food from an Asian supermarket, the labels written in a language I couldn't understand, only some had English translations. I should've wanted to learn Japanese. I tried when I was 12, the first time I went to Japan alone. I really wanted to learn at that time. But, like most other things, as a 12 year old, my interest in the language faded away.

    I didn't know I would be in Japan for university. I hadn't considered it until my last year of high school, and mostly came here under the influence of what my father insisted was best, considering the other colleges that I had been rejected from, and the high tuitions of the others I had been accepted to. 

    So far, it's been 9 months. I've lived here for 9 months, I've been a university student for 9 months. I've been unsure of what exactly I'm doing or where exactly I'm going.

    But, I suppose that's okay for now.

    I live day by day, just as I would anywhere else.