Not Everyone Gets to Realize a Life-Long Dream At 21

But there's a catch . . .

I have been incredibly fortunate in that I have the incredible opportunity to study in Japan, a life-long goal of mine. Unfortunately like all good things in my life it came with a catch. I knew I probably wouldn't get homesick or suffer from too bad of culture shock, but this? This sucks life. My laptop is dead, or at least, vary nearly there. I think the trip to Japan may have been too much for the old girl.

Currently I'm using my new friend's computers and the 24 hour computer lab but I hope I can find someone to fix the old girl. I've done some research and it's very difficult to find English set keyboards in Japan. I've been talking with the university, but because it's orientation week it's hard to find help. There are free buses to the mall and the electronic store Yamada Denki tomorrow and I'm hoping to find a Japanese Student Willing to help me explain my problem. Otherwise it the IT tech department at the university won't be able to take a look at my computer until Wednesday at the earliest. I talked to one of the international student heads yesterday but nothing has happened so I will try to track her down this evening.


Other than this debacle  I've been having a great time.My flight wasn't too bad either. Grandpa and Grandma were very sweet while sending me off. The told me how lucky I am, because not everyone get's to realize a life-long dream at twenty-one.As I was going to security I looked back and Grandpa cupped his hands together. He used to tell me that when I first came out of the hospital he could hold me in two hands and he would cup his hands just like that. It was the sweetest thing and I think I will remember it until the day I die.


I met up with Madison and we had to wait a long time for the plane to come in, but he was good  company so that was ok. When we got in to California we got right on to the plane to Japan, we even had to rush to get there on time. I decided to try to sleep right away since I can never sleep on planes. I dozed and kept waking up but I got enough sleep by dozing for the 11 hour flight that I was ok when we landed. We were smelly and gross but thankfully no one seemed to notice (or they were to polite to act like they noticed).

We had a long time to wait before getting on the flight to Akita, which was only an hour long. Madison had the window seat but from what I could see Japan has some beautiful mountains. We landed in the Akita International Airport and the School picked us up. We didn't have a chance to rest before we were whisked through paperwork and a tour.

The campus is gorgeous, but isolated it is twenty minutes from Akita City by bus. It is very hilly around us but we are located in what appears to be a valley, it is hard to tell because we are surrounded by pine trees as far as the eye can see.

Here is a view from the balcony of my room

The buildings are all very new and the equipment is great. They're almost all connected in some way so it's possible to get pretty much anywhere on campus without going outside. We have a 24hr library and computer lab as well as a language lab with free Rosetta stone software. The only thing to watch out for is bears, apparently one was sighted a few days ago.

 

Campus

One of the walkways connecting all the buildings

I haven't met my roommate yet, apparently she is coming on Tuesday. My room is pretty small, but it connects to a bathroom shared with the other room. The best part is:  It has a TUB! I am really enjoying the hot baths i get to take every night. I haven't made any Japanese friends yet but I have met my suite mate, she lives in the other room connected to the bathroom. She's been very sweet and her English is excellent so I'm sure we'll enjoy each others company.  I have made two other friends Natalie who goes by Noland  and Matt. Noland likes to role-play and loves Bioware games so we hit it off immediately; she is from Kentucky. Matt also enjoys Bioware which is how we all met, both he and Noland play the guitar. Matt is from Brittan and he's quite funny.

Classes don't start for a week so hopefully by then I'll have the computer situation well in hand. We have orientation all week but I hope to find time to work on the computer. I'd like the next post to be typed on my own computer.

Departure Preparations

My flight for Japan leaves tomorrow, and while logically I know that I will be there in about 24 hours, it hasn't really sunk in yet. I'm sure that by tomorrow I will be able to regale everyone with tales of my flight; meanwhile, I will discuss all the ways not to prepare for a study abroad trip. I recommend setting aside a lot of a prep-time, I generally tend to plan things out way ahead of time and I ended up having to scramble to get ready at the end.

While it was easy enough to make my health decisions, the nice thing about going to JBy interstingapan is that I don't have to worry about things like malaria,  I did have several other adventures, the first of which was getting my visa. In order to go to Japan, I needed to receive my certificate of eligibility. Unfortunately, after submitting my paperwork, I had no control over when I would receive my certificate.  I finally got the thing a few weeks before my trip, so instead of using an online visa service I decided to go to to the Japanese Consulate in Chicago.

I had no idea what getting a visa would entail, I sort of assumed that it would be like going to the DMV. I thought I'd go in fill out a bunch of paperwork and wait around for a few hours. I figured: Chicago's only a few hours away from Beloit, I'll take a day off of work and go in. First lesson: check your date because I ended up driving in to Chicago on a day when there were six concerts going on. I finally got to Chicago and paid for parking. I ended up staying in the consulate for five minutes and being told to come back in two days. The next time I went in to Chicago I took the train, avoided the traffic, and planned to spend the whole day in Chicago and had a lovely time.

I also had an epic saga involving my insurance company. I called in my medications for Japan two weeks in advance, I thought I was planning ahead, then my insurance company became nigh unreachable. It was a perfect example of best laid plans going south.

Packing was an adventure in and of itself. I have learned that I am not a good over-sea's packer. Making a list of what to pack does not help me to take things out in order to make the weight limit. As it is my boyfriend had to take my suitcase away to stop me from putting more things into it.

It's been really frustrating trying to get ready for Japan. There have been a lot of unexpected pitfalls, and it's been difficult getting everything together. I've had to learn how to do a lot of new things really quickly an it's been an interesting ride. I like to think of it as practice for Japan, if I could do it all over again, I'd try to leave myself more time, but other than that I don't really see any options.

There is one thing I can do now, which is to get some sleep because I have a looong flight tomorrow. I haven't been on a long international flight since some family vacations when I was little so I'm not sure what to expect, but I have a friend to fly with so at least I'll have company. Maybe I'll blog during one of my layovers or maybe I won't have time until I'm settled in Akita. Once I'm in Akita I'll post pictures, but until then you'll have to make do without.