| CIR diary |
New Years Resolutions 2012.1.26 Aurelie Noel
(from her November 2011 article in the Maiibaraki newspaper)
Happy new year everybody! I hope you had a good time with your family
and friends.
In France, when the New Year starts, people like to have New Years resolutions.
At this time, sharing my resolutions with my friends was pretty interesting.
For 2012, I decided to learn how to drive! When I explain this idea to
Japanese people, they always assume that I already have a French driver’s
license and that I just want to change my license into a Japanese one.
In my case, I never learnt how to drive in my own country. I studied in
Paris and then moved to Tokyo so I never really felt the need to have a
car. This time, living in Ibaraki Prefecture has changed my lifestyle and
I finally decided to learn how to drive. My friends’ reaction towards this
is different according to their nationalities. For example, my Japanese
friends would say “But how are you going to do with the Japanese? Maybe
you can try in English?” (When none of these languages are my native language)
and my French friends would say; “Japanese people drive on the left side
right? What will you do when you return to France?” Learning how to drive
abroad is a big challenge but I think that New Years Resolutions have to
be a little bit challenging to be fun. So what are your resolutions?
※this article was witten for the Maiibaraki newspaper