Well, classes at JCMU are finally over!!! Today was the closing ceremony, where this semester Dr. Johnson had an actual speech, and the distinguished guests who came had either short boring speeches or longer interesting speeches. That and I actually got a certificate this time around (last semester those of us staying for the year had to be segregated from the students that were “graduating”). After the closing ceremony we had a nice little party with free food and cake! Much mingling ensued. At 1pm on the dot (since it all has to be very regimented, clearly) the teachers all disappeared to their offices, and all the students followed to the dreaded……grade announcement. I waited in line for my turn…..and in the end got the grade that I had expected/hoped for: a B-. A B-, you might think isn’t so good, but for 3rd year Japanese where I WORKED MY BUTT OFF, a B- is damn fine. And don’t try to tell me that 3rd year is easy if you practice time management, because that’s BS and clearly you aren’t in 3rd year. All I can say is that I’m incredibly glad that the JCMU experience is now over. I’m really going to miss a lot of the people that I’ve met here, but I’m not going to miss JCMU at all.

I’ll have to save my big Japan thoughts blog post though until after I get back to the states, because right now its 12:50am and I’m leaving JCMU at 7:30am tomorrow morning. I’m taking a train from Hikone station that goes directly to Kansai Airport, and should arrive with plenty of time to spare for my 1:10pm flight. I’ll be back in the states in about 24 hours!! Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!