I was a senior at Tomioko Girls High School until a Tsunami damaged the school and it wasn’t able to be repaired. My father wanted me to go to a school in which I would be kept hard at work on my studies. If I keep up my studies I will be able to attend the Tokyo University after I graduate.

I never experienced any punishment at my school, but I know that some girls were made to wear “Fumeiyo no bajji” which were ribbons describing what you had done wrong. If you were late for a class yours would say that you were late. This is very dishonorable and hurt all the time. No one would talk to you, play with you, or have anything to do with you. Plus your parents would know, and you would have to deal with that.

I was told that I would be coming to a school in Switzerland that was very strict. My school in Tomioko was very strict, and I can’t imagine any school more strict than there. If you did something wrong or got a bad grade, it would reflect on your class and everyone in the class would treat you very badly. That was worse than the “Fumeiyo no bajji”. Not something I would want to ever experience.

My favorite subjects are Math and Science, and my worst is Geography. I maintain a ranking of number 2 in math and science, and a ranking of 7 in geography. I also hold a ranking of number 2 in biology. I hope to study genetic engineering in university. I would like very much to become a doctor and cure diseases at the genetic level.

I don’t really enjoy many sports, I’m just not very good at them, but I do like to ride my skateboard. We have skate parks and they have competitions every week. The ones that are inside that is, and most of the other ones only hold them in the spring and summer. I have done a 360 Ollie and won a competition landing that one. I like lots of other tricks as well, and my best are a Ghetto Bird, Reverse Ollie, and a Gingersnap.

My father is a businessman at Toyota and my mother stays at home and takes care of me and my little brother. I have two older brothers that are away at university. One attends the Tokyo university, and my oldest brother attends Yale university in the United States. He is researching dynamic holographic bonding of molecules.