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After the full online course due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I started living by myself in Akita. Before starting, I didn’t think I would have trouble living by myself, but housework was more difficult than I had expected. The photo shows a meat sauce pasta I made.

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I thought living myself was not so difficult

I thought I could eat whatever I wanted

I thought I would enjoy housework

Because I knew how to buy groceries

Because I knew how to cook

Because I knew how to clean

But I didn’t know how to choose vegetables

But I didn’t know soy sauce was that salty

But I didn’t know housework took too much time

I wandered around supermarket for three hours, grabbing my phone

I wondered why I couldn’t imagine how it would taste like, nibbling at soup

I wondered why there were too many kinds of laundry supplies

I missed my mother’s dish

I missed the scent of laundry dried outside

I couldn’t bear the simple taste of my cooking, so I called my mother 

To ask how to cook my favorite dishes

One of them was meat sauce pasta

It took 3 hours for me to cook and eat

It was not stylish

But it reminded me of my mother’s cooking

Finally, I realized how great my mother was

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I studied at Starbucks. The photo showed Christmas drink in the Starbucks.

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The orangish lights cast a soft light on a space. Cars are running outside the store in the snowy weather. The store has some Christmas music playing inside. I’m sitting in the middle of the long table. Someone is typing on their PC at the same table, and another takes notes. At another table, people are enjoying chatting with their friends. While guests enjoy their time in the store, employers keep getting orders and making drinks. The sweetness of the drink made me realize Christmas is coming. 

The Painfully cold air made her nose red like Rudolph. The temperature was totally different from her hometown. She had never experienced such a cold and dry air. Everything, including people house, cars and sky is unfamiliar to her. “No,” she noticed. “I’m a stranger in this place.

 She just arrived at her dormitory of her studying-abroad university, and decided to get lunch at a restaurant near the dormitory. She totally depended on iPhone map to reach the restaurant, but the path seemd too long to her, because everything was new to her.

Finally she found the shop. As the name of restaurant, “Roots Burger Bar” expressed, the outside of the shop was really like American Bar, which she had seen in movies. She grabbed the door knob and timidly opened the door. Compared to what she had imagined, the inside of the shop was in relaxed atmosphere. She didn’t know how to contact employers, but the employer noticed her soon and took her to a table by the window. Asked to choose drink, she ordered Pepsi. Soon, the employer brought her drink and welcome snack Pop corn. She was frozen for a minute, not because it was cold, but because the cup of drink was too big. The cup seemed taller than her height of head. Anyway, she ordered a humberger plate, which seemed to be a normal choice.

She freezed longer when her dish was brought. The plate was full of french fries and humbergar was bigger than Japanese ones. She bit it, and found the taste was good. However, she felt full in the middle of the plate. She didn’t want to leave food, so she decided to keep eating. As her speed of eating became slow, the chatting voice from other table caught her attention. Although she could not understand what they were talking about, they enjoyed the conversations. She looked her table and suddenly, the emptiness of her table took her attention. She put a knife and folk, and looked down. Suddenly, she felt cold. She took her iPhone and try to call her family and noticed Japan was now midnight. She wondered whether she could enjoy living here.