My year in Japan is winding down, and it's impossible to not be reminded of it every day. There are many tasks for me to take care of before I return home, but in doing many of them, I am reminded of how much I have improved my language skills and cultural knowledge this past year.

I went to the city ward a few weeks ago to file a cancellation form for my health insurance. I was able to negotiate the entire affair using only in Japanese. When I think back to the beginning of the year, I went to the city ward with Okaasan, and she filled out all the necessary forms and negotiated everything for me when setting up my health insurance, so being able to do this on my own is a huge accomplishment.

On Friday morning I took my final two Japanese language class examinations. After those examinations were completed, I had finished my final Japanese language class! It was so easy to improve my Japanese here because I was able to study the language intensively for two hours every day in a classroom setting. I have realized after being here that it bothers me when people try to speak to me in English just because I look like it is my native language. But in the United States, I constantly approached people who spoke Spanish or Japanese and tried to converse with them. I wonder if that bothered those people. As much as I like to speak foreign languages, maybe I should save my conversation attempts for language classes and language group meetings, as opposed to speaking it with any person I meet on campus or around town.

At my school's international student office, I saw for the first time yet another difference in United States and Japanese culture. I told the administrator that I would be traveling to Okinawa next week, and she wanted me to keep my student ID card to use for discount purposes. But then when deciding when I should hand it into the office to be voided, she had to confer with another office personnel, who then got another two staff members involved in the conversation. It turned into a giant affair with many of the office staff conferring together in order to decide when I should turn in my student ID card. If this had take place in the United States, one person would have decided and informed the others later of her decision. But in Japan, everyone decides and approves of a plan together.