Live Like A Dream!
Timothea Euangelista Gunawan — INA AKP to Japan YP 22/23
Finally I came to Japan. I live like a dream!
Hello everyone! My name is Timothea Euangelista Gunawan, commonly called Thea, I come from the city of Palembang, Indonesia.
I have been living for three months in Japan. And, you know, every time I wake up, I still feel like I’m dreaming! There is a quote in Japanese that says “Don’t be afraid to dream about what you can achieve, go where you want to go. Be what you want, because we only have one chance in life to do something new.” (あなたが達成したことについて夢を見ることを恐れてはいけません、あなたが望む場所に行きます。 私たちは人生で新しいことをする機会が一つしかないからです。 )
About two weeks in Japan, the school asked me to give an introductory speech to the high school students at Kwansei Gakuin Highschool関西学院高等部 . And this is the first time I have to prepare a speech in Japanese. I am grateful that there are many friends and host family that are helping me prepare this speech. In this speech, I convey my joy to be able to study here and hope that I can improve my Japanese language skills quickly so that I can take lessons and build friendships with friends at this school.
During summer vacation, I also had the opportunity to take part in the International High School Student Forum 2022 高校生国際交流の集い2022 at Kwansei Gakuin University関西学院大学 . In this forum we discussed the issues of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To be honest, I was surprised, because here they attach great importance to SDGs-based learning, and almost everywhere I see information about these SDGs. In a group, along with 3 Japanese students, I was assigned to discuss the issue of SDGs №2, which is about Agriculture in Japan. After discussion, we presented it in front of the leaders and the assessment team who were all great people. Although feeling nervous, I am very proud to open this presentation by greeting using a few words in Indonesian, and introducing myself as an Indonesian. And finally, we got the 1st place in the content field and got the 2nd place overall.
Finally, the last one is, an unforgettable vacation experience with the host family during the summer. Before summer arrived, my host mom was worried about my activities in the summer, because the summer vacation here is about a month. Because school holidays in Indonesia never last for a month, at first I also thought, wow this is a very long time! But at the end of the holiday, I felt that time was running so fast, I didn’t feel like the holiday was about to end.
I was lucky to be able to enjoy my vacation with the host family. With my host family, I was able to visit various places that I couldn’t have visited alone. I was invited to my grandmother’s house by my host father. And to be able to enter this village, it can only be reached by car and there was no signal there. The air there was still very cool, and in the morning, you will see views of rivers and mountains covered with morning mist and also the sound of birds chirping. We were fishing together and had a BBQ together, after that I was invited to join my extended family to play suikawari スイカ割り, it is a traditional Japanese game that involves splitting a watermelon with a stick while blindfolded. My head is very dizzy. When I have to turn on the spot, it makes it very difficult for me to walk forward and finally I miss the target and fail to hit the watermelon properly.
Many exciting things had happened during these 3 months in Japan, many things that I saw and felt for the first time. I can’t wait to write another story about my life in Japan over the next 7 months! じゃ、また今度。
