Shinobu Baba

2008-09 Inbound from Japan

Hometown: Saitama, Japan

Sponsor: Omiya West Rotary Club, District 2770, Japan

Host: Fort Myers South Rotary Club, District 6960, Florida, USA

School: Riverdale High School, Fort Myers, FL

Bio

Shinobu's Bio

Hello, my name is Shinobu Baba. I'm from Saitama, Japan. My city is next to Tokyo. In Japan, I live in the city, but now, here, I live on the farm. That's so different.

I'm 16 years old now, and I will turn 17 years old on December 31st!! It is last day of the year!!! In America, I go to Riverdale High School, in Ft. Myers, it is so amazing!! I love my school. When I was 7 years old, I began to play basketball. Then I stopped playing basketball for 2 years. Now, I try to play basketball here, at high school, I have a good time!!!

Before I came here, I was afraid to make friends, live with people who can't speak Japanese. I make friends a lot! I am so happy to live with my host family, they are so funny!! I love them!!

November 16 Journal

On November 1st, my sponsor RC had a Halloween party at my host family's house. In Japan, we don't have Halloween. It was first time for me. Before the party, I was so excited, because other exchange students, Bianca, Philip, and Vivian, they came to the party! We had a good time. And at night, Bianca and Vivian, they stayed over night at my host family's house. We talked about our school, our host family, and boys :D almost all night!! I had a very good time with them.

At school, I play basketball. I made the team, I play with Varsity!! The teammates are nice to me. It's hard for me to make sense of what the coaches are saying. We have practice Monday to Saturday, I'm trying to play hard with teammates.

I'm sooooo excited to see everyone at Disney!!!!!!

Thank you Shinobu

January 9 Journal

Hey, how are you doing?? I'm doing well.

As you know, I play basketball at Riverdale High School. We have two or three games a week, and practice every day, even on the weekend. In Japan, if we have games, it is on the weekend. But here, in America, we have games after school. That makes me so tired. Early in December, I had been sick for three weeks because of no breaks. And on the weekend, we had Rotary trip to Walt Disney World, so I could not rest on the weekend. Then on Wednesday of the next week, I was too tired to get up in the morning, My host mother, Ms. Holly, knew that I was really tired, so she let me be absent from school to take a rest. She is such an awesome mom!!!! I was sad though,,, because I love Riverdale, I didn't want to miss any school.... As a result, I can play basketball with my best conditions now!!!

Let me talk about my great winter break!

During my winter break, from December 21st to January 4th, I was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with host family to visit Ms. Holly's parents. Philadelphia is below New York. Of course up there, it's really cold. Before I went to Philadelphia, my mother sent me a box, there were a couple winter clothes, Japanese snacks, and Christmas presents for everybody. My trip in Philadelphia was very nice, we reached Christmas, my birthday, and new year. Christmas, it is big holiday in America, it was really nice!! Before Christmas, I and my host sister named Jessica, we wrapped a lot of Christmas presents, there was about 70 presents!! We were so tired to wrap presents,,, But we always talked when we wrapped them, so it was not bad.

In the morning, we opened presents, I was so excited to open them, I got a lot of presents, hoodies, shirts, candies, socks, pajamas, purse, wallet, watch, basketball hoop, make up stuff, and stuff for hair. That is a lot!!! And my host family likes my presents from Japan or got in America, That made me happy. I had really good first American Christmas=]

My birthday was a lot of fun!!! In the morning, we went to Rotary, I ate delicious food, and Rotary people sang the birthday song for me. That was a really good experiment!! haha At house almost every family held me birthday party, I guess my birthday is new year's eve, that 's why all of them came and celebrate my birthday before New year almost at same time!!! I got a lot of presents from everybody. I got hoodies, shirts, pens, nail polishes, hello kitty stuff, and accessories. I had good time and turned 17 years old!!! After birthday party, came new years, we held a cup of juice then when it turned 2009, we did cheers. That was awesome!!!!!

On January 3rd, we went to Philadelphia to visit historical places, Philadelphia is famous for the place where began United States of America!!! It was really pretty. I was going to Washington DC and New York, but we did not have enough time to go there. It was snowing, we experienced really good new things=)

End of this month we have a get-together. Probably I'm missing basketball practices and games. I don't want to miss them. But I'm excited to see my friends at Seacamp!

March 7 Journal

Hello. How are you? I'm good, and having great experiences. More than 7 months of my time in Florida has already passed, I started thinking about going to a college here. I have some reasons. First of all, I want to study English more in a country where people speak English as their first language. Second of all, I LOVE AMERICA and AMERICAN PEOPLE!!! Plus, in America, gasoline is cheaper than Japan!

Now I'm so sad, because basketball season is over. It was for about 3 or 4 months. It felt it was for a week though. The coaches are very nice, my friends on the team are so funny and I had a great time with them. I'll never forget that I played basketball with such nice people! Now that basketball season is over, we still hang out. I made real good friends, I thank my host parents,<3 Mr. and Mrs. KOBIE<3, for coming every single one of my games, letting me play basketball. Of course, and for hosting me. They are really really awesome! I won't change host families. I'm so happy about living with <3the KOBIE's<3 the whole time in Florida. THEY ROCK!!!!!!

I already told you that I live on a farm. I'm in the 4-H club. In September, my host mom bought a rabbit for me to show at the 4-H fair. When I saw him first time, he reminded me of my dog who we have as a pet. She is named Jasmine, is black, soft, and really small. So I named him Jasmine, he is a male rabbit though. Last Saturday, I showed him at the 4-H fair. I was excited and nervous. During basketball, I didn't have enough time to communicate with him, and practice for the fair. I was even too busy to rest. I couldn't do better than other people. But I had really good time at the fair with my dear male rabbit named Jasmine!! After the fair, I'm giving Jasmine to a little girl whose sister's horse is taken care at my host family's farm. She probably loves a rabbit more than I do. I'm going back to Japan, I can't take care of Jasmine, then I decided to give Jasmine to her. I bet that she is having a good time with Jasmine, and I can imagine she is doing well at the fair!!

My sister is coming to Florida to visit me from March 17th to the 24th. I'm really excited about that! She is 21 years old. She goes to to a university to study nursing. Japanese schools usually finish in March, and start in April. So she is coming during her spring break. My mom used to be a nurse, now she is a teacher for the students who want to be a nurse. I'm looking forward to seeing my sister. Probably I will take her to school, and take her to the classes with me!! We (my host family and I) also plan to go shopping, fishing, and to the beach,,,, I want my mom and my dad to come here to see me. My mom is going to Spain for fun, and my dad is going to China for business. That's why only my sister will come. I'm really happy, though. My sister is one of the best friends. In Japan, we go shopping together, we share clothes, and we hang out all the time. I'm having a really good time in Fort Myers, Florida!!!!! Maybe she will experience many things that I like and she also likes!

Now, that basketball season is over, I am playing softball at my school, Riverdale High School. I've never played before. The softball coach was also my basketball coach. She invited me to play softball during the basketball season, but I didn't want to play softball because I didn't want to be busy. Then, I knew a lot of my friends on the basketball team play softball at school. They are nice people. So I asked the coach to take me to the softball practice. That was fun!!! I decided to play softball at school. I'm learning about softball with coach. I'm busy now, but it's okay because softball teammates are nice and funny, and I love to play and watching softball. I'll try to do my best on the softball team....=]