Nearly three hundred nervous girls came back to school on Monday, having just finished writing the national center examination. They were here not just to check the answers of their test, but also measure what their future would hold. Had they done enough to reach their goal? What would be the outcome of years of studying? For some, joy. For others, heartbreak.

We all experience times in our life where our future seems to swing based on a single event. We call them “seminal” moments or “pivotal” moments in our lives. For myself, I had one such moment in the early spring of 2005, when I learned the outcome of months of paperwork and a twenty minute interview. I received the thick envelope in the mail that said I was being accepted into the JET Program in Japan, and would be placed in a city named Izumisano. Eventually, taking that path brought me to Wakayama, Shin Ai, and these words. If I had failed during that interview, my life would have been completely different. I might not even be in Japan anymore. I might have a different family, job, and lifestyle.

Would my life have been worse? Better? It is impossible to know. It is up to ourselves to make the best of wherever our journey takes us. My grandmother always told me that “Nothing is wasted”, meaning that every experience influences your future self. As our graduates fan out into their futures, they will discover this too.