Her first name means "Beautiful Blossom" in Japanese, and she has some unusual interests for an 18-year-old Rockport High School senior.
For example, Misaki Nishimiya doesn't even own an iPod and expresses little or no excitement for the Red Sox or their expensive Japanese import Daisuke Matsuzaka.
No, Misaki is much more intrigued by Shakespeare, chamber music, small ensembles, languages and the theater.
Speaking of The Bard, Misaki, the daughter of Hiroko and Yoshiaki Nishimiya, traveled on a school trip to Old Blighty last year and made it a point to visit Shakespeare's home at Stratford-on-Avon.
"I liked that little town and the atmosphere. It's like Rockport — only British," she added with her tongue fixed squarely in her cheek.
A B-plus student, Misaki is one of the winners of a Gloucester Daily Times $1,000 college scholarship, formerly the Eagle-Tribune scholarships.
Misaki said she is still deciding between two schools to attend come September.
"I've been accepted at UMass-Amherst, and I'm waiting on Mount Holyoke College," she said.
In the meantime, she's honing her other interests; for example, the theater.
Unlike the majority of young women, Misaki's not interested in acting. She's much more intrigued by theater design and lighting.
"It's a lot of fun trying different things on stage to make the play work," she said. "I really like adding colors to the set to make up an atmosphere for the actors."
Obviously a member of the Drama Club, she's been involved this year in such stage productions at the high school as "Museum," "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and one with which she said she felt right at home with, "The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged."
Then there's her interest in music: She plays both the clarinet and violin in ensembles. She said she enjoys chamber music because "you really take the music and make it have depth.
"I can take something someone else has written and create my own vision of it."
Misaki, who has two sisters, Akiyo, 16, and Satomi, 10, is also a member of the newly formed Rockport High Orchestra and the marching band, which will strut its stuff on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.
Another interest of this well-rounded senior is languages, particularly Spanish: "I took an advanced Spanish exam this morning, and I'm still on a Spanish high," she said with a laugh one day last week. "I speak it fairly well, but I'm also trying to get around to reading in it."
So it was hard last year when she had to make a decision on which country to visit: Spain, where she could practice the language, or England. The UK finally won out because she wanted to see London as well as The Bard's home.
Misaki also hopes to get back to speaking her parents' native language, Japanese. She'd like to visit the Land of the Rising Sun, to which her mom and dad said sayonara in the 1980s to come to Cape Ann.
"I'd love to experience Tokyo and some of the countryside as well," Misaki said. "I've lost most of my Japanese, so I want to study it in college."
