In this photo, I was teaching science to third grade students. The topic of that day was “solar and lunar eclipses.” It was the very first class about the topic, so I prepared a worksheet for them. Before beginning work on the worksheet, I used a science textbook from Japan used by similarly-aged Japanese pupils. I wanted to show them the photos of solar and lunar eclipses. The students looked confused at first—it was probably because they had no idea what “日食、月食” meant.

I conducted a sushi-making activity with third graders in northwestern Ohio this past fall. In the photo, a young participant carefully adds the rice to her creation. Some students liked the sushi and some didn’t—the seaweed was a turn off, I guess. Many of the students said “ewww” and giggled. This was very interesting for me since it is very common for us to eat seaweed like “wakame” and “nori” but not for the American children. It was slimy and foreign!

I was a cast member of the school musical production of Little Shop of Horrors. The four months with our high school musical cast became one of the best memories in my exchange year without question. I still remember the first rehearsal. I made many friends in this musical. Everyone helped me a lot with repeating important information and fixing my pronunciation. (That was definitely the hardest part.) I cannot thank the other cast members enough!