私はシュライナーです。 (I am Schriner.)
ミシガン大学の4年生で、専攻は社会学とクリーエーティブライティングです。 (I am a fourth-year student at the University of Michigan and my majors are sociology and creative writing.)
ミシガン州のオリベットという小さな町の出身です。 (I am from a small town in Michigan called Olivet.)
Last week, my friend Jennie asked me to accompany her to a mass meeting for the Japanese Language Club. When I first started college, I decided to take Japanese to fulfill the LSA foreign language requirement. I enjoyed it so much that I ended up electing a minor in Asian Languages and Cultures. After finishing the equivalent of three years of Japanese language classes, I was around intermediate level by the end of my sophomore year. But I hadn’t taken a Japanese class or actively used the language since then.
Initially, I was adamant about not going. I already had enough clubs and responsibilities under my belt: work on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Women’s Glee Club on Sundays and Thursdays and, of course, my work for Michigan in Color and a few other writing positions. Even more so, I was scared of embarrassing myself since I had already forgotten so much Japanese. Despite these concerns, I knew that practicing would be the best way to keep up with the language and I figured that it might be fun to meet new people. I couldn’t let my fears of inadequacy hinder me from doing something I wanted to do that would help me, so I told Jennie that I changed my mind. I was coming to JLC.
Halfway through the JLC meeting, we broke into small groups and, like we often did at the beginning of each new term in Japanese class, gave a Japanese self-introduction, or jikoshoukai. Sharing my jikoshoukai brought me back to freshman year when I was first learning Japanese and an introduction was all I knew how to say. I had changed from being a first-year to a fourth-year, and having not one major but two; however, the structure was all too familiar. For a brief moment, I met an old version of myself, when simple facts like my hometown and year were the defining features of a person still trying to figure out who she wanted to be.
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Before the JLC meeting, Jennie and I walked around and ended up stopping by the courtyard of East Quad, where we lived during our freshman and sophomore years. East Quad was where I took my first Japanese language class as part of the Residential College’s intensive language program. We recalled some fun times we had in the dorm, which led to a trip down memory lane of our college lives so far.
Jikoshoukai was one of the first things I learned while at the University of Michigan, and after just reminiscing about freshman and sophomore year, I felt oddly sentimental when it came time to do the self-introductions at the JLC meeting. Recalling the cookie-cutter phrases after over a year without them was an invitation to step back into old ways of doing things. But I also realized that these were not the friends and classmates I used to practice jikoshoukai with, most of whom I had not talked to since the pandemic started.
There is an ingrained sense of discomfort — at least, there is for me — that comes with self-introductions due to the newness of the situation that calls for them, be it new people, new clubs or new jobs. A self-introduction is a form of interaction that tells others who you are, what you do and what they need to know, which can be nerve-wracking in trying to condense and encapsulate who you are in a few short sentences. More than being worried about judgement or about how I’m perceived by others, however, self-introductions can be stressful for me in the change they represent.
Recently, I’ve been reading a great deal about students’ experiences with goodbyes, new beginnings and an uncertain future. To me, such subjects are more timely than ever. I know that the familiarity I have with jikoshoukai — that is, the nostalgia it brings from freshman year — will come to an end once I graduate and it slips into a distant memory.
College has passed by in the blink of an eye, and I’ve been worrying a lot about graduation lately. We are still in the beginning of fall semester yet I am cursing how quickly the weeks are proceeding. My freshman year flew by, work consumed my sophomore year and junior year felt like it never even happened due to the pandemic. It’s strange to think that by the time I graduate, more of my time at the University will have been affected by COVID-19 than not.
Before the pandemic, I often told myself that I had nothing but time. I believed I had the entirety of junior and senior year to go to performances, parties and sports games. Selfishly, I still feel robbed of opportunities like study abroad, and at times I wish I had known then what I know now. I continue to mourn the loved one I never fully had the chance to say goodbye to and the campus life that wasn’t there to distract me from the pain.
But reflecting on jikoshoukai reminds me of something else: As discomforting as new introductions and the change they bring are, there is beauty in new beginnings. It’s foolish to mourn my college years when they haven’t even ended yet. As terrifying as it is to move into the workforce after being in school for most of my life, I can’t let my fear of the future prevent me from living in the present, nor can I dwell on the past to where it holds me back from moving forward. Senior year so far has already given me new adventures and new memories to cherish. I’ve been at the University for over three years now but am still meeting new people and trying new things on campus. While I may never do jikoshoukai quite the same way again, I know that the future post-graduation will bring many more opportunities, experiences and self-introductions.
私はシュライナーです。 (I am Schriner.)
ミシガン大学の4年生で、専攻は社会学とクリーエーティブライティングです。 (I am a fourth-year student at the University of Michigan and my majors are sociology and creative writing.)
ミシガン州のオリベットという小さな町の出身です。 (I am from a small town in Michigan called Olivet.)
卒業したらどうなるかわかりませんが、将来のことをかなり楽観します。 (I don’t know what will happen when I graduate, but I feel hopeful about the future.)
MiC Columnist Elizabeth Schriner can be reached at eschrine@umich.edu.