The time of coming is near

So yea... Today is the 10th of August and I leave for LA Airport on the 17th.  Everything is slowly falling into place and soon I will be on my way to Japan!  Over the past few months I had become worried this date may not arrive due to multiple illnesses.  Currently I am confident it won't effect my plans.  Today I have a bon voyage picnic with the other host students.  I look forward to seeing them and how they are coping with the up coming trip.  Hopefully I might learn a few tips from them since I have never been on a plane (as far as my memory serves me) if anyone has suggestions feel free to leave a comment or something.  One last thing I would like to again thank everyone who has helped me get this far, it really is a dream come true.  I will most definitely try to share the experience as best I can through this blog, pictures, and vlogs.  This blog will get a lot of use in the next few days so be sure to visit to see how my adventures are going!

Second Pre-Departure Orientation

This morning I attended my second Pre-Departure Orientation.  Compared to last one, it was much more diverse.  Last PDO there were 5 students going to Japan where as this year there were only two.  The content was mostly the same with a few variations.  The coolest thing though was meeting the exchange students that had come to America.  I spoke with one of them during lunch who was from Japan (I didn't catch his name) and it turns out I will be going to the same province he is from!  Although, he didn't recognize the name of the city I will be living in, I am sure it will be nice to know another ASFer in the area.  After the Orientation  when we are leaving there was a mix up where I ended up leaving the car keys in one of the rooms the Orientation took place.  Because we had stayed a little later (and hunted for the keys) we ended up getting delayed by about 20 minutes till someone with keys to the building could let us in again.  Once again I am getting excited about leaving, and all the stress I am sure will return when the departure date gets closer.  Wish me luck!

I am still going!

With the earthquake that had devastated Japan, about a month ago, I was contacted by AFS notifying me that the year long exchange had been cancelled.  However, I was invited to attend the six month program departing in August.  For the last couple weeks I have continued to fundraise which will make the exchange less of a burden on my family's allowance.  So far I am just 4,000 dollars for the entire exchange to be completely financed through fundrasing!  I thank everyone for their support for my dream and their patience to hear news on this matter.

SAT

Just a small update.  I took the SAT yesterday.  Which was mentally draining, but nothing caffeine can't fix.  I replied back to the Kato's email, it took me awhile because I've been busy.  When I hear back from them I will talk about it.  Today I am writing some scholarship letters and editing some to submit.  Thank you all for your support!

A snow day

This morning I awoke to discover that I had received an email from that Kato's.  Apparently it had snowed that day, and quite a bit at that.  Yoshiyuki and Chiharu made a snowman outside, expressing they wanted my opinion on it which I was happy to give.

AFS PDO

Today I went to AFS Pre-Departure Orientation.  There I met some of the volunteers I have been talking to during my application process.  I also met other exchange students. I believe there were 10 of them. (Two going to Argentina, One going to Australia, One to Italy, One to France, and 5 to Japan (including my self)) It was fun talking to the people and very informing of the program.  It was a general overview so it wasn't really country specific.  Some things I learned there was that there are 3 rules to AFS 1. Don't Drive 2. Don't do drugs and 3. Don't hitchhike. All of which will get you sent home immediately.  Also if I am to learn the language and experience the culture I should use English as little as I can.  This means that while I am there I won' have my laptop and calls are probably not going to be good.   I will continue to post on my blog and send email news letters.  Snailmail works too but for all my friends I require them to be in Japanese :P (Its better for the both of us)  It's exciting to finally come to realize that this is actually happening.

 Also today when I came home and napped.  I received an email from Chiharu talking about her day etc.  I to talked about mine however it was a bit more lengthy.  I was one of the few that have already learned who my family was so I count my self lucky that I am able to have communicating with them.

Fragmented conversation

I have made contact with the Kato's!  After some confusion with emails I was able to talk to Yoshiyuki.  There was only a couple sentences and the English was fragmented, but I could still understand him.  I replied in Japanese at some length, the quality of which I am still curious about.  The next day Yoshiyuki replied confirming that the current email he was using is the working one.  Then wrote about how it has been cold in Obu, therefore he was sitting under the こたつ (kotatsu). A kotatsu is a table that has a blanket skirt around the sides and heater underneath.  I also found out that they have a dog named Ruby (the dog was under the blanket as well).  Before I could reply I received an email from Yukie, my host mother.  Which gave a brief description of the family.  It was interesting to hear about the family also her English was much better than Yoshiyuki's, with only a few minor errors.  In return I replied in Japanese, which I now regret.  After I hit the send button I read what I had actually written, which leaves me to wonder what I really did learn in those 3 years of Japanese.  My verbs and sentence structure was odd and I even used the wrong post-fix on a verb that strictly is not suppose to have a post-fix.  When I was writing I used a Japanese dictionary I had received for Christmas and so I was worrying about my vocab rather than the actual Japanese I was writing.  I would like to think that I was still understandable however it must have made a bad impression.  Since then I haven't received a reply.

Here is a picture of a Kotatsu for those who don't know what I meant.