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Webdesign & contents
by ClaireWorks.
Copyright 2000-2001
Beverly Claire L. Fangonon.
All rights reserved.
All graphics & photographs
by ClaireWorks,
unless otherwise indicated.
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2002. It was five years ago when my plane landed at Narita and the Monbusho people met us and put us in a bus and headed out to the Japanese language center to start our new life as students of Japanese society. March 1997 was when it started. And as I write this it is March 2002, and I'm graduating from college. I wonder what is in store for me now that I, unlike many of my non-Japanese peers, have chosen to leave the safe haven of the academe.
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University graduation 2002. Click to view actual size.
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2003. Hi. Yeah, I'm still here. Um, I was planning to write an article--a very long one --about my years in Japan. Like a memoir of sorts. But duh, I'm still here, and it seems like I'll be here for quite some time. I kinda gotten to like it, and there's really no reason for me to leave. Unless, of course, I get fired or something like that. But as of now, things are going well and as the cliche goes, a rolling stone gathers no moss. Seems like "Nippon of My Heart" won't be written until I reach my thirties.
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A 2002 March spring day. Click to view actual size.
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The postcards you see above were made by my friend Kayo Sakurai. She took the photos and made the cards herself. Kayo and her husband Shinji and daughter Yumi have been such a blessing to me. Yes, it is people like them that make my stay in Japan worthwhile. That's why I'm still here. After all these years.
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2004. Hi. I'm still here. If Year 2002's highlight was my graduation from college and Year 2003 was having the pleasure of working at my company's engineering department, then the 2004 highlight would be celebrating the wedding of a colleauge and friend of mine, Naoki Hirabayashi. It was my first time to be invited to a wedding by a Japanese couple. The ceremony was lovely and the reception was simply perfect. I loved every minute of it! The photo you see was taken by my favorite hairdresser, Miss Tanaka, before I left her salon for the church. The slinky dark green dress was painstakingly hand-picked by my dear friend Hikaru Tsukamoto, who patienly shopped with me the week before as I prepared for this much awaited event.
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2004 with me dressed up for a friend's wedding.
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2005. Hi. I'm still here. "Here", of course, being Tokyo. I don't know if I'll ever have the courage to leave this place. This year's highlight? I celebrated my birthday, or to be more exact, my friends made me celebrate my birthday, for the first time in three years. Yep, you heard that right. I usually don't celebrate my own birthday as I have a problem with learning to age gracefully. But this year my friends Nobuko Masujima, Roxanne Bucaria, Sam Mchombo and others didn't let me get away with it! It was a pretty sweet surprise.
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2005 in my apartment one autumn day.
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In two years I'll be celebrating my 10th anniversary as a gaijin (foreigner) in Japan. Lately, however, I'm still trying to figure out why I can't seem to balance career and private life. Yeah, believe it or not, even at this age I still haven't gotten everything figured out. Another year older but none the wiser. I must apologize to all those who have been trying to contact me all these years without any success. I plead guitly to being a bad friend and an even worse correspondent. One of these days I'll make up for it. In the meantime, please don't give up on me.
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in the Land of the Rising Sun,
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