As I clicked the e-mail that showed me who my classmates were for one of the first-year mandatory classes, tutorial, I could not believe my eyes. Lo and behold, I was in the same class with a Japanese student. That summer day when I opened that e-mail, I never thought that this Japanese would be have this large of an effect in my life. Hello, this is Oraaaaaa, and I will talk about what has surprised me the most in Grinnell College.
This Japanese that I keep talking about is someone that you all know by now, こうた. As soon as I saw his name in the classroom list, I smiled and heaved a sigh of relief. “At least I will have someone to talk to in this class” is all that I thought at that time. What makes this shocking is that there are only around 10 Japanese first years and close to 40 tutorial classes. Since the school would want to spread out people with the same nationality, to have two Japanese in the same tutorial class is extremely rare and was unprecedented. Many would think that I would need to see him at least two times per week, since tutorial happens every Tuesday and Thursday. In fact, I see him every day; however, this is not because we have other classes together. How peculiar coincidences are. This is what I thought as I got to Grinnell College and went to put my luggage in my dorm room.
As I walked through corridor of the second floor, I soon found the room that I was going to stay in for one year. After leaving all my bags in my room I stepped out of my room to start exploring the dorm. After two steps or so, I stopped in from of one door. As I looked at the name on the door, stupefied. Again I saw the name こうた right next to my room. As impossible as it sounds, the two of us live right next to each other and are in the same tutorial class.
Having a Japanese who is in the same class as I am has drastically affected my lifestyle. Since I have someone that I can speak Japanese to every day, I do not feel as though my Japanese exacerbating. In addition, since we are in the same class, it is easy to go over work and help each other. There is no need to message each other on social media for the most part; just knock on the door like in the old days. As the days get harder because of the impending week of final exams, having a minute or two just to relax and have a conversation is priceless.
It is evident that this Japanese that I thought was going to just be another Japanese student substantially affected my life in a positive way. Maybe it is because I know こうた more than the other Japanese first years but having him both as a neighbor and as a classmate is the best; there is no other Japanese that I would have replaced him with. As the first semester is coming to an end, I feel appreciation for the series of coincidences, which has helped make my life easier. Thank you Grinnell College for making an illogical choice of putting two Japanese in the same class and next to each other, but more importantly, thank you こうた for dealing with me for a semester. Five more days of class until the end of the first semester; I hope you as well as all the other Japanese do as well as you all anticipate to.
