Who Am I?

Location:
Kyoto, Japan
Latitude/Longitude:
35.011564000000, 135.768148900000
Journal Entry:

Hi all! My name is Amal, and I live in Kyoto, Japan. Japan is known as the “Land of the Rising Sun” because the day starts here before other places in the world. I am currently 14 hours ahead of New York time, so if you are reading this in the morning, it is already night here!

I grew up near San Francisco, California. I have an older and younger brother, each three years apart. My older brother is a software engineer, which means he builds websites, smartphone applications and other technologies. My younger brother is in college, and he really enjoys helping other people and being in the wilderness.

Growing up, I loved reading books, playing the violin and playing freeze tag with friends. As an elementary school student, I wanted to become a writer and illustrate my own books. However, as I grew up I realized that there were many other subjects I was interested in, such as math, chemistry and history. My first connection to Japan came in high school, when I took a Japanese language class. However, I realized later that I was not the first in my family to be interested in Japan. My grandfather had lived in Japan in the 1980s, long before I was born!

For college, I went to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That is all the way across the U.S.

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