Friends

Sometimes, I can't believe the types of friendships I've gained. It's almost amazing to see how your friendship with a person has progressed over time. I guess I just want to take time to appreciate one friend I have.

My college has many foreign exchange students. It is such a large community of cultures working together and forming bonds. It's not like before I came to college I had never met someone from another country. I think that is almost impossible to do in the United States, and if you have, you must not get out much.

Anyways, I have never met anyone who was Japanese. Of course, in high school, I was that person who loved anime and wore cosplay. I'm not ashamed of it because, over all, it made me find things (and people) that I love today.

My college has a very good Japanese program (I talked about Japanese in my last post), so there are a good number of students from Japan. Last year was my freshman year and I remember I was really worried about not making any friends.

It was the first week of school, but all the freshman came early before any of the upperclassmen. On this day, there was an event where they had lots of games in the center strip of the school. I remember I had finished unpacking and thought "I need to go... I need to meet some people and hopefully become friends with them." I will never regret this decision.

I ended up seeing a guy that I sat next to during one of our orientations. He was really nice, so I sat down to talk to him. At one point, this guy comes up to me and introduces himself. I was so surprised because he told me he was from Japan. Actually, I was so nervous that I didn't catch his name. I just nodded and then tried not to feel so awkward.

My first thought was "he's cute", but I didn't focus on it. I ended up spending time with them and all of the other Japanese students that went to my school for that year. I didn't talk to them much.. I was very shy, but I talked to some of the Americans who were friends with them.

My school has a big thing for giving away free T-shirts. I don't know if you have ever gone to study abroad, but the first rule is not bring too many clothes, so a lot of these foreign exchange students don't have much to wear. They kept running for the shirts when they were shot out of that little cannon. I remember that the boy I thought was cute got two of them. They were exactly the same. Before he left for the night, he looked at me and said "Do you want one?" I kept saying "no, you need it more than me", but he said I should take it... so, I did. I like to think that is the beginning of our friendship.

I later learned his name, and actually, he has become one of my very good friends. We dated while he was here, but we broke up so that we could keep our friendship. I'm happy with the result.

Anyways, I love our relationship. We don't talk a lot because we're both very busy and the time change doesn't help much, but every time we talk, it's like nothing has changed. We laugh and joke with each other. I'm so happy I will get to see him soon...very soon. I feel bad for him cause I know I will cry when I see him.

In my mind, I find it amazing that the first Japanese person I ever met because such a great friend to me.

Of course, he is not the only great friend I have or the only Japanese person important to me, but I'm really happy that it started with him. He and my other friends have made me want to learn Japanese. I want to be closer with them and understand the cultural bounds and where they intersect.

Even though this was about my one friend, I just want to say... I love all of my friends. They make my life wonderful and I don't know what I would do without them. And, in case you were wondering, yes... I still have that T-shirt.