When my sister was here three years ago, she was taught during her second semester by this woman, Nishiyama sensei. Thanks to her kindness, Nishiyama sensei soon became my sister's favourite teacher. When I went over to visit my sister in 2012, I got the chance to meet her. We met her once quickly while she was working, then again one more time and she had bought me a gift. It's not the gift that really mattered, but the fact that she was thinking of me, having barely met me. I was really looking forward to meeting her again three years later during my stay in Japan, and I was hoping she would also be my teacher for one semester.

When I arrived at Tokai, we had to go multiple times to the Building #8 (where all the international students study Japanese) and I remember meeting her every time, smiling, speaking in slow Japanese to make it easy for me to understand. She had introduced me to a few people to make sure I had friends right off the bat.

Now she didn't end up being my teacher (they can't pick which class they will teach) but she was teaching the class below mine, and their classroom was right next to mine. Whenever we saw each other in the hallways, we always had chats. We were supposed to go out to dinner but as I was busy with judo and studies, we never ended up going... until the spring vacation came around.

When we finally met up, it was on February 20th. We met at the university, since she had been finishing up work, and we walked up the hill to a small middle-eastern restaurant. The man running there could speak pretty good Japanese, and trust me, we heard a lot of it that night. He talked to us almost the whole time. But when we did manage to have conversations, it was nice. I really enjoy talking to Nishiyama sensei. She's sweet, very kind, cute of course, and she has a good perspective on things in general. The food was really good on top of that, so it made the whole thing even better. The only problem was that my stomach started hurting, but I managed to hide it.

I will be seeing her throughout the next semester, and I really do hope she becomes my teacher.