I worked hard on my essays, I thought about my goals, and I asked for help when I needed it. And guess what? I got the scholarship! That moment changed everything, it opened the door for me to come to Japan and it taught me that taking a chance on yourself can lead to something amazing.
Even after arriving in Japan, I had to keep pushing myself. It would have been easy to stay in my comfort zone, hang out with other American students, eat the foods I already knew, and speak English whenever I could. But I didn’t come all this way just to play it safe. I came here to grow.
So I made a promise to myself: I would say “yes” to as many new experiences as I could. Some of those yeses were small, like ordering something completely unfamiliar at a restaurant and hoping it wasn’t too spicy.
Others were much harder. The hardest day of all so far was when I had to fill out my dorm address and insurance paperwork. It sounds simple, right? It's just a few forms, but it was all in super advanced Japanese, legal terms, formal kanji and vocabulary I’d never seen before. I remember standing there, holding the papers with my mind spinning. The people behind the desk looked at me like I was from outer space. Honestly, I felt like I was. I felt stupid, confused and totally out of place.
For a moment, I thought, What am I even doing here? I wondered if I’d made a mistake coming to Japan and if I’d ever feel like I belonged. I wanted to give up.
But I didn’t.
