My first letter home....

Although this is a blog...I have started to write what I call letters home.... Yes this is for my family but for my friends as well to read and maybe see a piece of me you havent before seen!
Love you all!

Dearest family,

As I am writing this….I am reflecting on my first week here in Japan.  I’ve realized how much I really did chat…I now know that I shouldn’t have. Although I love you guys very much…it is not need.  This is my time to shine, my time to grow, and become more independent and in order to do that I need to stop chatting.  Thank you mom for telling me that!   Mom you are my hero…my knight in Shining armor.  Dad you hav0e been always there for me, thank you, even with our tough times I love you and have worked hard to not pick a fight with you.  Aimee, I love you soo much!   You have been a wonderful sister.  You have been there for me and when I come home or even now I will always be here for you, I know before when I was home I got annoyed when you talked to me, but you need to talk just like I do.  I hope you gain your voice while I am gone! When I come back we are going to be swinging at Cooperstown thinking about how amazing the wind feels through our hair just like 2 little girls! J Thank you everyone for always being there for me…for dealing with my tough times and my overly happy times! J I love you guys.  I know you will always be there when the people I called friends leave me, I know I can always come to you if I had an issue at school and I know you will help me solve it! I thank you guys so much! You have paved my path for my future and not in a bad way, you have showed me discipline you have questioned my outfits, and even though I was mad at you for talking to me about how what would the adults think, I love you for doing that! You have made me think twice on some of my decisions that could have been disastrous! Thank you! <3   In the weeks to come, I plan to grow in my own strength, stop my addiction to Facebook, make some true friends at school and write more letters home!  Yes mom you were right a novel will be written while I am here! J A novel for you, my family,  of all my adventures and times of trouble.  Though you are the first I am writing to, this will be for all of my family back in New York! Love Forever and Always!

Yours truly,

Sarah Adele Cook <3

Yes, I am still living! :)

So I had my first orientation yesterday! J It was soo much fun! I got to meet the other 5 exchange students! Julia: Brazil, Bruno: Brazil, Francois: France, Carlos: Mexico, Callie: Canada!  I had a great time with them.  I haven’t done the no talking for a month with my family at home, but I’m dropping chatting unless they are in Japan with me, due to the only way we can communicate! J  I miss my home, I will be the first to admit it! I’m not ashamed!! I love my home and my life in new York, but for me it was realizing that going to Japan has been a dream of mine for a long time and having it finally come true is an incredible chance, I can’t spend it on the computer worrying about what my friends are doing! Compared to them I’m doing a lot more interesting things! J I am slowly learning to hang with the family and enjoy the time!  I had a lot of coffee last night and so I was kind of wound up, but my host mom, and sister had some good laughs with me; like the word for to buy is cau pronounced cow! So Miho (my host sister) and I said we are going to buy a cow; cau cow! J  I had a great time.   I do want to say I am going to try to stop responding or commenting…so if you comment don’t expect that I will comment back! Same with chatting!  I love you guys but, I have to do this!  I really appreciate everyone support of going abroad! A big thank you goes out to my parents, and sister!  I had my “first day” but I only ended up having half a day! J I got my schedule and it is crazy!  I have biology and Chemistry….I have 2 maths’s, I have 2 English’s: one all about like translating between Japanese and English, and then the other all grammar!  I am enjoying my time, but not the public transportation, got lost today! UGH!!! I hate buses! :/  I lost my great grandmother the other day/ today, so that has been a little tough today for me!  I know she is in a better place, due to the fact that she couldn’t remember who anyone was, I remember we would stop in when we were in the town she was in and she couldn’t remember my mom her granddaughter say nothing about the great grandchildren! I cried every time we said good bye!  I will slowly get over this but for now it is on my mind! Well I will sign off now!

Sayonara,

Sarah

Jamata New York! Konnichiwa Japan!

So for all of you that read my blog…..sorry I haven’t updated  in a while!   It has been very crazy this last week!  As I am writing this I am on my fourth airplane! J This is the real plane flight, this plane with take me to Tokyo Haneda! Then, I have to go through customs and then have to ride a shuttle bus to the domestic part of the airport to catch my 5 and final plane, to Osaka,  Japan.  My mom has started her  end of the summer working at the school.  So, Aimee and I went with her and  entertain ourselves.  I had my new laptop so we could watch DVDs and have popcorn, we would play on the swings,  walk to price chopper and back! Aimee and I’s final adventure was when….I decided before I was going to leave for Japan my friends and I need to go get coffee at stage coach! Aimee tagged along ….due to all my friends liking her!  My friends, Aimee, and I all had a great time Aimee had a MEDIUM hot chocolate that she enjoyed very much and I a Carmel macchiato (SOOOO GOOD)! Then once my friends left we had to go back to the school (my mom was working) and so we WALKED from main street Cooperstown to the school…..we had fun! So back to the airport, I had a big going away group…..my grandmother, my Nana, my Aunt, Aimee,  Mom, and Dad.  We checked my one free bag….which was my medium sized luggage and it weighed 41.0 pounds! (it had to be under  50!) I was happy! Everyone walked me as far as they could. My mom got a boarding pass so she stayed with me right up until I walked on the plane!  I realized Good-byes are really hard! I love every one   of those people so much! It was painful…espeacially when I had to say my final good bye to my mom.  She has been my role model my night in shining armor and my everything!  I will really miss her! Love ya mom!  So all of my flights have gone pretty smoothly y…I got lost in LA figures….luckily someone helped me!  So now I'm on this big plane….And yes it is BIG!!!  I had a good dinner on the plane, I didn’t even have to pay for it! J I had chicken and vegatables….then there were shrimp but, I didn’t have that and then my sald…I spilt the ranch dressing on my blanket I was so mad! I got over it! You have probably have been wondering “have I slept?!” The answer to that is Yes I have slept….When we got settled on the international flight  I passed out before we had even taken off! I slept for 2 hours and that has been about it! I’m sure I will sleep because according to the screen in front of me…we still have 7 hours and 21 minutes!  So I just thought I would keep everyone up to date.  I don’t have wifi  right now so I will post it when I get to my gate in Tokyo!! My watch says it is about 5:03 am….not sure how correct that is due to the time change, but my computer is still in New York time and it is about 8:02 a.m. My parents and Aimee are going to woodsmen completion today.  On a side note I watched 2 very good movies….The lucky one and the hunger games!  Hope all is well back in New York  miss you lots!

Love Sarah