The LAST day of class. My oral final exam was at 11:30, and it went fairly well I guess—considering I still really lack confidence in my speaking ability. It ended up being less scary than yesterday’s dress rehearsal was.

Afterwards, I went to find Keiko at her classroom since I’d heard she was looking for me earlier. I then met Yasu and Aki for lunch at the Curry House—Risa came later. It seemed like just another day, though in the back of my mind lurked the somewhat depressing thought that this would be the last time.

I then went down to get my JR Rail Pass validated—I’m kicking off my vacation travels tomorrow morning with a trip to Hiroshima. It took forever, for reasons I can’t quite fathom, so I got back to the I-house a bit later than I should’ve, but the party hadn’t yet started. It soon got into full swing, though, and turned out to be a lot of fun. But again, there’s that nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach: it’s all over. We each took a turn giving a short thank you speech, and I was last once again. I managed to thank everyone in Japanese, then (like the rest of us) switched over to English. All I can remember getting out was that I ended up loving Japan even more than I thought I would—then I got choked up and couldn’t say anything more as I looked around the room at all these wonderful people who’d helped change my life. Who’d helped me, talked with me, had fun with me and not treated me like some old man. It was a very tough thing for me to go through…

But again, it ended up being a lot of fun. We finally all sang our song together, and I made a clever little insert lyric when the microphone was passed to me. We all received certificates of completion along with some very valuable gifts: video of the Sumire Kindergarten visit and our speeches, and a CD-ROM filled with photos from our time here.

The last thing I did was take my CPs and a couple of other friends out for dinner. It was kind of subdued but enjoyable. I really appreciate how much they did for me and the time we shared together—I wish them all the best. I’m going to do my best to stay in touch, and hope they will do the same. I’ll miss them, and always remember our time together…

[BTW—I’ll be gone over the weekend on my travels and not have access to the web. So you’ll just have to wait a couple days to see my travel photos and read Saturday & Sunday’s journal entries.]