Today was also the last day to see Barbara here. I visited her office and thanked her for having me this year.

Again, it was a very unexpected meeting to see her here. I got to know ESL program when I was a high school student. I read a book written by Professor Kitamura who taught at Coe once in the past. He talks about how the ESL program here is nice, and I decided to come here during the college life. But after getting into Waseda, I forgot about Coe that I read in the book, and I, actually, had other choices to study abroad. The reasons I finally chose here were different from the professor窶冱 recommendation.

When I visit Barbara窶冱 house for the first time, I found the very book that I had read in my high school days. Rereading the book, I found some familiar names; I realized that this college was the college that Professor Kitamura had introduced for the first time. It was a totally coincidence. I didn窶冲 expect this encountering.

Although Professor Kitamura has already passed away, I want to give him huge thanks. I cannot help feeling that everything that happens in my life is somehow related to one another at some point.

I asked her one important question: English skills after getting back to Japan. She gave me some practical advice; I can read newspaper in English, listen to the internet radio, write my journal in English and also make some international student friends with at Waseda. Whether my English is going to be improved after this study is totally up to me, she added. Yes, I understand that very much. I have several living experience after the studying abroad; the first one is Australia in spring 2004, and the other is the last winter. The last winter vacation, I didn窶冲 really keep English, partly because I will be back to the States one month later. I know it is very hard to keep in touch with foreign language in my mother country. I need a very very strong will to do it.

I asked the same question to John Chaimov since he is the chair of the Foreign Language department. He said, 窶廬 hate to say that, but your English skill would stop at this point.窶� He told me that his skill in German was the highest when he was a college student. Since then, even though he teaches German, his skill has been getting worse and worse. I understand that as well. I will not have such a good environment to speak English ever in my life.

I don窶冲 know how much effort I will make. I want to keep this level in Japan too, but laziness will prevent me from studying English, especially I don窶冲 really have to use English to live in Japan. Probably, this is going to be the hardest challenge rather than getting out of my country. But I will, I will study.