The ripe time

ripe - most suitable or right for a particular purpose; "a good time to plant tomatoes"; "the right time to act"; "the time is ripe for great sociological changes" (thefreedictionary.com)

The decision to study in Japan during my third year of university was my father's idea. He deemed it best that I first get used to the university system instead of flying halfway across the world right after my high school graduation. Perhaps he wasn't ready to let me leave the nest yet... and I wasn't ready either.

It was a good decision. I completed two full years of university at the University of Winnipeg. My first year consisted of general introductory courses. I also took an introductory Japanese course to prepare me for my trip to Japan. Then in my second year, after having taking an introductory kinesiology course (and fallen in love with everything kinesiology is about), I decided I wanted to become a personal trainer to help anyone (from seniors to overweight people to high performance athletes) achieve their goals through exercise and fitness.

Those two years helped me decide what I want to do with my life. During those two years, I also improved my Japanese a fair amount so that I wouldn't be completely clueless when I came to Japan (though I felt pretty clueless anyway). Those two years also helped me gain a certain amount of general knowledge that has proved itself useful in my Japanese class this semester.

For example, in each chapter of our book, we have a text to read. The subjects vary greatly. When I started reading lesson 7, I thought "Oh no, this is yet again a boring text that's hard to understand". But after a few paragraphs, I realized the text was about Weiner's Attribution Theory, something I studied in my Intro to Psychology class in my first year of university. So that gave me an edge over the other students because I understood the material well. Then, in lesson 9, the text talks about blood doping, an illegal method used by athletes to increase their stamina by increasing their red blood cell count (red blood cells absorb and carry oxygen throughout the body), something I learned in my Intro to Kinesiology class. So once again, having studied it back in Canada made it easier for me to understand the text.

So in conclusion, I'm confident that I am exactly where I should be. The time is ripe for me to be in Japan.