Preface

The title 'Japanese in Spring' is recollection of my memories, thoughts, and events that occur to me during my last semester at Drake University. I chose to write about my last semester at Drake because there are a lot of specificity events and idea that occur that change my understand who i really am, how people interact and react to each other, and what it means to be human, or somewhat American, in the United States of America. I write solely for the reason people are interested in good story, a juicy story, a deviant story, a funny story, a crazy story, and stories that make people believe they learned an important lesson. My story, or rather my limited story during my time at Drake University seems to fit into the category of love, trust, deviance, funny, outrageous, misunderstanding, horrible, death, self-understanding, philosophical, cultural, depression, confusion, emotional, and almost anything else that anyone can come up with.
Indeed, my last semester at Drake was one of the most unbearable, emotional, and hardest moments of my life. Not only did I have a hard time absorb, accepting, and understanding lectures that question so many concepts and frames of references of my and people daily lives, but i also had to deal with understanding who i was, and the difficult situations that i had to deal with, regarding with love, trust, identity, doubts, and regrets.
I am Mexican-American. However, i don't typically fit into the typical stereotype or identity of being a young Mexican-American in the United States. I am different. With most Mexican American friends and people who i know, I stand out like a sore thumb. While I spend time in learning new concepts and theories to understand the world, or enjoy reading a good book, questioning a lot of things about our human lives, or socializing with new people outside my community, or traveling to different places, understanding a different culture, or even investing a lot of time and effort to make me a better person; mostly young Mexican-Americans or Hispanic spent their time working to make money, or stay among their limited friends and places that they know, limited there opportunity to explore anything different, or merely talking and creating drama among their family or friends, or spending their time no questioning their lives and live on without truly understanding what is happening outside of their frame of references, or living up to the expectations that family and friends have on them, or even getting ready or having their very own family. Truly, in some ways, i do stand out from from the typically Mexican American or Hispanic in the United States.
In addition, I have greater interests in Japanese culture other than Mexican culture, which is family flesh, blood, and soul. I was not born in Japan nor does my family have any connections to Japan, or even the slightest interested in Japan, other than my oldest brother, who loves Japanese anime and he is starting to like Japanese culture. Nevertheless, Japanese culture seems to be a part of me. I studied Japanese. I listen Japanese pop music everyday and know some popular music artist. I enjoy reading popular Japanese manga and seeing anime. I like learning about Japanese culture, habits, traditional values, lifestyles, and listen to Japanese stories, rather it is from video games, books, or from Japanese people experiences. I love almost everything about Japanese culture. I am different than the typically Mexican-American or Hispanic young male in the United States and sometimes my family doesn't understand me for being so.
In any case, I am different and this part of me becomes part of a bigger problem that I had to face in my last semester at Drake University. What I will attempt to do is recollect my thoughts and memories during my last semester at Drake to present an interesting story, with hardly any chronological order, which seems very hard to recollect for sake of a interesting story, that i hope people enjoy, understand, and starting thinking about their lives. So, i begin with my story of my Japanese in Spring.