The Power of Goodbye

I guess that when you leave a place, you can find out how little (or in my case, how much) people like you. I had to say goodbye to the people at school yesterday. It was sad, but a little happy because it turns out they really liked me.

This class gave me a sweet present and a little goodbye speech in English. They are generally not good at English, but they were so much fun to teach.

They made me a seating chart with all of their names and a personal message from each of them. One student wrote "Courtney is Superwoman" and another wrote that I was an angel. I mostly agree. Oh, and they gave me chocolate. I love them.

(The girls pictured here are wearing masks in order to protect their identities.)

After I gave my farewell speech, a lot of students handed me letters and I even got a sweet poster from one class. Also, a lot of students wanted to hug me. That was the best thing that happened. You may or may not know that Japanese people are not big into hugging, so this was a huge deal for me.

Love letters from my students. I will probably wait until Valentine's Day to read them.

What I will miss most about Japan is these kids. They're awesome.

I Heart Coffee

We go together like espresso and cappuccino.

Little Eggplants

One of the teachers I work with gave me a beautiful eggplant plant last summer. It almost died due to neglect while I was on vacation in July, and it lost three little baby eggplants and all but one leaf. Once it got the sunshine it so desperately needed, it grew its leaves and little eggplants back quickly. I finally harvested them just before I went home in December. I didn't do anything special with them, I just made some spaghetti. Look how sweet the little eggplant family is:

And here is a close-up of the baby: