We discussed marriage in conversation class. I was a discussion leader so I researched marriage. I was surprised that it is only Japan, Korea, and Taiwan to have a family registry system. Family registry is an official paper on which our name and family relationships are written. I think a family registry is like a box of a family. When a man and a woman get married to each other, their names are taken from each family’s registry and put on a new family registry. When they have a baby, the baby is put in the family registry. I think it shows Japanese value. Japanese think that group is important. Family is a group and a family registry shows they belong to the same group. We are in the same box. If children marry, they get out of their parents’ box and make new boxes. I had a interest in common-law marriage. Common-law marriage is not legal marriage so common-law couples have problems. I wondered why they don’t get married legally and I also thought that why people get marriage. If we just want to live together with a partner whom we love, we can live together freely. I think it is better to marry because being married is to be considered to be a couple legally. We can get some support from a government or law because we are a legal couple. On the other hand, common-law couples have a reason they chose not to get married or they have a reason they can’t marry each other. Being married is not always the best for us. Common-law marriage is one of the choices to be happy. Through this topic I felt we can see Japanese culture or value in family registry system. Also, I thought marriage is a big event in our whole lives and may change our lives completely. My dream is having my family with my husband in the future, but I noticed there are many choices to be happy.
I went on a totally amazing Southwest trip with my classmates. The trip was my first time to go to the Southwest so everything was new to me. Sarah, Anikke and Bethany came with us. They made our trip more exciting. I’m happy I could go on this trip with them and I had a lot of great experiences. First, I really enjoyed New Mexico. It was chilly but not too cold. I went to the Old Town in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I liked the Old Town because there are many cute things and good restaurants in there. For example, I found a gate that was decorated with a lot of red chili peppers. I had never seen anything like that before so I was very surprised and it looked like a lot of flowers from a distance. The red chili peppers were absolutely gorgeous. Not only that, I found a great restaurant. I forgot the name of the restaurant but they have really delicious Mexican food. They gave me some Mexican chips for free and recommended that I eat the chips with honey. I really like Mexican chip