It was a rainy day, of course. That how these things always start out. As I wait, and wait and wait, the crowd around me slowly died down. Perhaps it's my fault for arriving twenty minutes before I was supposed to -- I was nervous and excited. Finally, they call me. "Blad Rice?" Well, things were off to a great start. I stood up and the CIE staff member led me down the hall to one of the classrooms I remember from orientation -- where we filled out our banking forms.

There were about a dozen students talking with their new host parents. Parents ranging from their early thirties, looking to expose their kids to foreigners and English-speakers to get ahead to those whose children had just left the nest and they wanted to fill up those empty spots in their home.

Mine was a different sort: the veteran type. There sat my host mother, an aged woman in her early 70s. She was smiling, dressed very conservatively and without a lot of makeup on, but she seemed kind. We sat down and the introductions began.

She got tea, I didn't.

Once we were past that, though, we went over the rules of the house: there's no lock on the door, so I can come back whenever. They'll provide a bike. I can use the bath or the shower (shower for me!), just as long as Otousan
goes first. I get breakfast and dinner. Not a terribly bad setup. I just had to deal with the language barrier.

The car ride was... interesting. Once out of the eyes of the Kansai Gaidai staff, she immediately switched back to speaking in Kansai-ben, the local dialect. This was something I was not used to, nor was I used to trying to memorize the directions on how to get to the house from the school. I was totally lost, and trying to make out landmarks through the rain.

It was overwhelming, to the point where I was doubting myself for even doing this whole host family business. There was only one thing that came to mind, and I let it slip from my mouth: "Zetsubou shita."

Thank God my host mother had poor hearing, because that would have been weird to explain.

We finally arive, and the house is one of the few that managed to escape the bombings in Osaka prefecture, meaning it was well over 100 years old. I ducked and weaved, trying to avoid the beams and lighting fixtures because, at 6'2", this house was my enemy. By the time I get my luggage into my bedroom, my host father was back and we proceeded to have dinner.

We joked, mostly at my expense, over learning Japanese. It was a huge breath of relief when we started talking for an extended period of time. All the awkward conversations in the car were quickly forgotten. Sure, we had a number of bumps in the road as my time there progressed, but that first night was a big change for me. I knew now that whenever there was something I was nervous about, I just need to throw myself into the situation, and I'll manage somehow.