By Shane Kelly Posted January 19, 2006
Recently at Lowry High School, one of our staff members took a very interesting vacation. Our school’s Chemistry teacher, Mrs. Gael McGibbon, recently went on a trip to Japan. She had been planning this getaway for a very long time.
She told me she applied for this trip back in December of 2004 through an organization called the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund. JFMF is a group created by the U.S and Japan to allow citizens of these countries to learn more about each other. She was accepted into the program in April of 2005 and finally got to go this last November. Mrs. McGibbon said it was a very tedious and extensive application process but it was well worth the wait.
I asked her what some of the major differences were between Japan and the U.S., and she told me that the people there were, “much more polite in personal & professional settings. The streets of Tokyo are very crowded but orderly, so you don’t feel rushed like you do in the U.S”
While she was there she stayed with a Japanese host family for part of the time and she said it was a “definite highlight.” She said that they are still friends and still communicate with each other via e-mail.
I asked her how hard it was to adjust to some of the different customs and she said that she had a little trouble adapting. “Not crossing my legs at the knees was a hard habit to break”, she said. I asked her what the most outstanding experience of the entire trip was and she replied, “Too many to mention.”
