Graduation Ceremony

The graduation ceremony was different than I expected...well what all of the Spring semester students thought it was going to be...

Truthfully it wasn't as bad as I thought.
All of the student had put on their nicest and dressiest clothes that they still had with them, but of course you have those few that don't have nice clothes either because they didn't bring them or the packed them away.

The day before we had rehearsal for the ceremony which was definitely a good idea due to the amount of recognition that we had to give, and the correct way to receive the certificate...

Speaking of which here's my certificate!

Yay, my full name too! I never used my full name unless I was asked, it's difficult to say and spell in Japanese. Then again apparently it's difficult to say in English too.

Back to the ceremony:

There were supposedly supposed to be 35 guests, 10 teachers, and I think a least 10 official guests that were coming. Some of the official guests were from Otsu ( the capital of Shiga prefecture ) from the Shiga Economics University (where my politics class was) and from other places. Our pictures were being taken, I'm not sure where they are going to be published in...maybe they might be posted somewhere on the JCMU facebook page? or something. During the ceremony there were speeches from students from each level of Japanese (1,2,3 )

The speech given by the first year student was simple but nonetheless heart clenching.

I thought she was going to cry during her speech, you could hear it in her voice.
There were a few students that actually cried, I was almost one of them. She started from rock bottom and pushed herself to where she was now, and now her next step is Russia. I wish her the best of luck.

The second year speech was done by a student that lives in Japan, and is a Nikkei-jin ( a person that has Japanese blood, but Brazillian ). His speech was also somewhat heart clenching because he talked about his experience at JCMU and how it left a huge impact on him and gave him an experience he won't forget. (Nikkei-jin have it difficult in Japan and also in Brazil. They aren't considered either and are discriminated against in both countries). I also wish him the best of luck in Japan!

The speech by the third year students were more of a comedy, definitely funny, but it sounded like tongue twisters and I can't do those in English or in Japanese.
Yikes!
One of the students commented that they were old Japanese men jokes, and truthfully that's what made it funny.

In short it was a small and legit graduation ceremony.
It also marked the last day I would spend at JCMU, kind of sobering...