The Irony of Where I Ended Up Living

Today, I'm just going to talk about where I live.


I quite like our new apartment. It's decently sized, has 4 bedrooms, a study, 2.5 bathrooms, and a huge deck that overlooks a pond. Despite living right in the middle of Tokyo, we don't hear the sounds of the city that we would if we were still living in Seoul.

We happen to live about 30-40 feet away from my old school, Nishimachi International School. This is awkward because neither my brother nor I will be attending this school. (We will both be attending ASIJ. There's an entire post about that.)


Nishimachi will always have a special place in my heart for many reasons. I was always challenged. With a 50% acceptance rate, I'm still surprised that I had gotten in at all. The academic standards were very high, which I loved.

About 6 months after moving to Japan, I learned that I was going to have a baby brother. Having been an only child for the first 8-8.5 years of my life, it's safe to say that I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. Long story short, my Mom got sick and she ended up in the hospital for a while. My second grade class came together and made her this really big and (for second graders) intricate card.

The thing is, it wasn't just the students that helped. It was the teachers. Some of them didn't even know. My PE teacher, Mr. Fernando, he always pushed me to do better, both in PE and in Soccer Club. My Japanese teacher, 坂中先生 and 川紙先生 (It's been a while, and my Japanese is rusty. Please forgive me if there are any mistakes.) helped me to understand the language more in depth. My 2nd grade teacher, Ms. Ferrans, made learning fun and was able to help me when I needed it. The librarian, Mr. Kolosowski (For the sake of my hands and their abilities to make mistakes, we're just going to call him Mr. K.) always suggested amazing books to me. This was so awesome because I've always had a very high reading level but a lower interest level.

Story time:
I had an affinity for dogs at that point and acted like one (a dog). So, I walked into the library and Mr. K said that I could only act like a dog if I was because of Winn-Dixie. I hadn't read the book that he was referencing at that time and so he directed me toward it and I checked it out. To this day, Because of Winn-Dixie is one of my favorite books. (I've had three separate teachers do guided reading with that book. You can imagine my frustration when I knew the answer but wasn't allowed to raise my hand.)

You know, the previous 3 chapters happened within my second grade year alone. Second grade felt like an eternity. But hey! I'm still alive.


I'm going to go now.


Cheers, DFTBA, and Good Night.

(Also, if you are any of the teachers that I mentioned above, email me or something. I miss you guys!)