A little brightness on a cold and cloudy day

This morning, it was drizzling and the sky was a opaque grey. It was also so cold that my breath looked like a thick white cloud. When I got to the train station, all that was running was the local and thus slowest train, and even that was crowded. I'm really so sick of Tokyo trains. I'm sick of getting pushed in by the other people getting on the train. I'm sick of being pressed up against people I don't know. I'm sick of having to use all my body strength just to keep myself from falling onto the people sitting down. And even if it's not true, I'm sick of feeling like people are staring at me because I'm foreign.

But just as I was feeling all this this morning, I get my speech grade and class feedback in my Japanese class. I recited my speech on Wednesday and I worked for 4 days straight to get it memorized so I felt that I did pretty well.

Yesterday, I got an email from my Japanese teacher, Watanabe sensei, who wasn't there to see me in class, but she listened to my recorded speech. She said that I spoke very clearly and it was very easy to understand. She saw that I tried very hard and was very proud of me!

My presentation grade was an A-. The teacher who graded it, Ikeda sensei, wrote that, although there were some issues with my accent: "This was a very difficult theme, but you spoke about it in a very easy to understand way. You also explained things very well."

My classmates wrote (translated from Japanese):

"This was the best speech I heard. The content was very interesting and easy to understand, and she explained things very well. I want to hear Kenia-san's speech again sometime!"

"This was a very interesting speech. It was like a textbook :) Maybe she should speak a bit faster, though."
(It took all I had to speak at the speed I did. For now, I think it's fine to speak slowly, but gradually I hope to be able to speak faster.)

"She spoke so beautifully! The tempo was very good and her pronunciation was very nice, too. The theme was very interesting and her explanations were very easy to understand. It was a very fun speech to listen to."

"It was the first time hearing many of the things she talked about so it was really interesting."

"Finally Kenia-san's treasure box enigma has been solved."
(I have no idea what this means lol...I think this was probably written by Miharu though...)

"This was a very good speech. The topic was interesting and the content was very well explained. She also responded well to the questions that were asked."

"This speech was called "What kind of person am I?". It was really interesting! I'm really jealous of Kenia-san! Actually, I've studied Spanish since I was a kid, but I've forgotten all of it :("

"This was a really interesting speech. She said that English was easier for her than Spanish."

Ahh the positive responses to my speech make me soo happy! So happy! Next Tuesday, I'm going to perform the speech again in front of my conversation club during the xmas party. I have it all memorized, so I can recite it easily. I hope they all like it too!