More graded writings:

Just wrote this narrative for English. We were supposed to tell a story about a time when we felt out of place in ~800 words. I struggled with that limitation in multiple ways, as you may notice (there wasn't any time to effectively introduce anybody else in a relevant way and the ending wraps things up a bit more than I had any desire to); and it's not my best story telling ever...but it works, and I'm satisfied enough with it for the time being.

Anyway, here's the story:

As I got out of the car, I got my first real exposure to the Okinawan summer. By the end of the day, Chris would come up with the most apt metaphor possible for the weather here: it was a mouth. At the moment, though, I didn't have time to worry about the heat and the smothering humidity; we were running late. Shigemitsu and I dashed from his mother's car across the grounds and into the school. We paused briefly inside to change into our school shoes and darted down the hallway. Shige slowed for a moment to direct my attention to the room where my compatriots and I would be starting our day and our month-long career at Okinawa Shogaku High School before hurtling up the seven flights of stairs to his homeroom, striving to beat the chime that signaled the start of the school day.

Slightly red faced and still breathing hard, I approached the room Shige had pointed out only to find the lights off and the door locked. My stomach lurched in exactly the manner it had when it expelled the overripe sashimi I had eaten with breakfast not an hour before. I suddenly became aware of the fact that I didn't understand a word of the language being spoken around me. Students who were less concerned with tardiness than my host brother were meandering the halls, some of them patronizing the school store, others just avoiding class. From their whispering and hand motions, the most obvious conclusion to my addled brain was that they were talking about me. And why not? Between my pale complexion and my lack of a school uniform, I was the most visible part of the landscape. I may as well have been a tree in the middle of the Nebraska prairie. Some of the younger students started to form a mob several feet away from me. In days to come I would learn that they likely just wanted to introduce themselves to practice their English; but at the moment, I could only assume that they were preparing to swarm and eject me from this place where I clearly didn't belong.

In a desperate attempt to avoid this grim fate, I decided to check the nearby rooms. The only direction Shige had given me was a point in this general direction. I easily could have picked out the wrong room from that hasty gesture. The light was on in the room next door. I walked past, craning my neck as I went, desperately hoping to see Chris or Dominick or Tucker or Janet, praying with all my heart that there would be some proof that this was where I was supposed to be. I had no such luck. Every chair I could see housed an unfamiliar face. I considered knocking on the door and asking for assistance, but I didn't want the first impression these administrators had of me to be that of a stereotypical, brash, self-important American. I doubted it had been much over a minute since Shige and I parted ways, and the chime still hadn't sounded. I had time.

As I glanced around searching for other nearby occupied meeting rooms I saw Tucker round the corner and finally felt some relief – a relief which was quickly dispelled as he closed in and I saw the lost look in his eyes. He was obviously working to control his breathing, which I chose to assume meant he, too, had been running behind schedule and not that he was trying to contain a frustration born of fruitless search for our seemingly mythical meeting place. I explained that I didn't know where we were supposed to be, either, and Tucker resolved to ask for help. He puffed up his chest and began his approach to the door where I had seen the meeting taking place. If they were administrators, he reasoned, they would certainly know who we were and where we were meant to be. In his mind, we were VIPs – for the day, at least. Edelweiss began to sound over the P.A. System and Tucker turned the knob and pushed open the door.

Miracle of miracles, it was the right room after all. We were greeted with great enthusiasm and the day from that point is a mere blur. We were taken out to lunch with the vice principal and were given uniforms and schedules to use for the next four weeks. We met the students in our homeroom, whose names none of us would remember the next morning. After the school day was over, I returned home and exchanged gifts with my host family, collapsing into a deep sleep before 10 o'clock. Subsequent days would be just as exhausting, but the month I spent in that house and at that school would prove to be among the most valuable of my life.