So the end of the semester means that we are now working on our speech project, which will come on the Saturday before we ‘graduate’ from the fall semester at JCMU. The topic of my speech is “The Impact of the Heian Period on Modern Japan”, which sounds like a great title, and indeed I could probably write a thesis on it in English, but in Japanese it was hard enough for me to fill the 3 page requirement. So consequently, I felt that my speech was kind of boring, since my subject matter was so historical, I wasn’t able to use a lot of the new grammar patterns that we have been learning to it. But today I met with my teacher, and she told me she thought my speech was very interesting, which made me feel a lot better. She gave me a few suggestions on things to add to make it more personal, like why I like the Heian period, so I’ll be incorporating that into it for my next draft. I’ve also been putting cute little stickers and stamps on each draft, just for the heck of it, and she adds little notes and happy faces next to each one. So she asked me about my latest sticker, a fuzzy sticker of Sirotan, so I told her all about Mother Garden and all the Sirotan stuff that I have. After we were done talking, the next student who was going to come to see her didn’t show, so I decided to run back to my room and grab a couple of my Sirotan things to show her. A few people who were taking a break from their class told me that they could hear her squeal of delight from down the hall when I showed her my alligator Sirotan. It was cute. Sometime in the future I’ve got to show her my Totoro stuff……