Farewell Speach -the process

I've been here 4 years. My ability to produce coherent sentences in Japanese is laughable to say the least.

This is how I was able to say my farewell speech to my students in Japanese:

First: Write the speech in English.
Second: Have a Japanese English Teacher translate it into Japanese (more importantly, using Japanese letters (hiragana) and Japanese characters (kanji).
Next: Re-write the speech in romaji (english letters).
Finally: practice pronunciation and intonation

Today I said my farewell speech in front of 600 students and teachers. It doesn't seem that long ago that I said my introductory speech! But it was. 3 years ago to be exact.

I practiced and practiced last night and this morning and was surprised at my lack of emotion as I said the words, but the minute I walked into the gym and saw all my students standing there - I lost it. I paused and sniffled and definitely produced tears while I was on the stage. I don't know if my students understood what I was trying to say exactly, but I hope they realized how important they have been to my time here in Japan.

I've got a couple of days left at Nyuzen High School before I move to my next job, teaching at elementary schools. What a change that will be!!

This photo was this morning after the speech. Some of my favorite senior boys invited me outside for a last pic together at Nyuzen High School.