(Picture Left: Their first Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches!... Man, the cultural lessons I am able to teach!)It's wonderful when your Japanese employers offer to pay for a luggage pick-up service the day before your Tokyo exit. It's also wonderful (...not) that they will be coming sometime between 9am and 1pm, and that's 4 hours of your last day. So, here I am, 9am sharp ready with my luggage at the door, taking in some good last breaths of Fuchu air on my balcony (where else?) and enjoying my last onigiri (convenience store rice ball, surprise food in the middle.) I've been up since 5am packing and now have stopped to sit sheltered from the drizzling rain on my 7th floor perch, watching the trains go by me at eye level and reflecting on the past four very lovely months in Japan...
I was truly sad about leaving up until about 2 days ago. Once I got a sense that my classes were finishing, I realized my purpose here really is completed, and I gained more from it than I ever imagined. My main focus was the teaching, and growing through that experience, and now I'm left with a real sense of accomplishment. My last hour on campus yesterday was a perfect exit, as two of my upper level 
students whose class ended the week before (photo right) stopped by the teachers room as we were frantically cleaning, to give me one last farewell. I sat in the hall with them and we just talked for 45 minutes (yes, I left my co-workers to do all the work, and I don't even feel bad.) It was great. Earlier that day another boy from an upper level class was sitting in the campus cool spot, an area with a few benches in the middle of the student's parked motor bikes, where there is always a little congregation of boys smoking, and he jumped up and started yelling to me in the distance. We yelled "I miss you" and were waving profusely, and I tried hard not to cry, just for the shere appreciation that after all the challenges I was able to connect with a few precious students.
I struggled to find things in common with these boys and their motivation was oft non-existent, but in the end none of that mattered. I talked to Carrie last night and said to her how I'm sad to leave them, wish I could keep some of them in my life and her natural response was, "Marina, they will still be with you, just like anyone you don't see a lot." It's so true. I was bummed earlier this month when I realized I would be having my second 4th of July out of the US, aka no fireworks. Fireworks is truly one of my favorite things in the world, plus all but one of my co-workers are not American so I had no one to pretend to celebrate with. But, little did I know, Japan has a whole progression of firework festivals at the end of the rainy season! Although the biggest fireworks occur the day after I leave, my last weekend here I did get to see the most amazing firework show I could ever imagine. No joke, they lasted a full hour. No stopping for one hour. Incredible.
They had cartoon characters and animals and smiley face fireworks (sometimes upside down) and everyone sits along the river in the grass or with blankets and picnics and traditionally people are wearing their Yukatas (summer kimono, much lighter) and there are food stalls everywhere. It was a glorious experience. Afterward my friends and I went to karaoke, and I had a moment where I stopped dancing around our private little karaoke room, looked around and
realized that during my first contract all lonely in the suburbs of Tokyo I never would have imagined that I would be having this experience in Japan: having fun with a big group of guy/girl, Japanese/ foreigner friends. And to top it all off, Laura was visiting from the States. I know the social life I was able to have this time around, including meeting lots of Japanese people, positively changed my view on Japan. I felt, and still feel, so grateful.
