February 25. 2004 12:00

I'm going to Japan!

I received the confirmation of being accepted on 21st of February 2004. Yaay! ^_^

The applying process took quite a while... I started preparing for the process in autumn 2003 and sent in the application in winter. The reply was delayed until February because Mr. Ogawa, one of the people who decided if I get there or not, was on a vacation. I'm glad that I was able to find out what was delaying my application by e-mailing to Mr. Rodgers, one of the International Office assistants at Kyoto Seika. I was very nervous because I didn't hear anything about them for 2 months.

Mr. Rodgers helped me a lot with the applying procedure, too, and I'll be asking him a lot more questions as the exchange period gets nearer. He's a really nice person, helping me out. I'm also excited to meet Matt Thorn, the English teacher at Kyoto Seika ^_^

Here's the list of things I have to do now:

• apply for the AIEJ scholarship
• apply for a dorm room
• apply for a visa (and get my picture taken for it)
• find out my class schedule for the semester and get my teacher here to accept it
• apply for a scholarship in my own school
• apply for the student money thing in Finland
• get an international student card
• reserve my plane tickets
• find out about my travel insurance
• get two vaccine shots (hepatitis B and Japanese encephalitis)
• find out about some technical things about living in Japan (like what kind of a adapter do I need to get electricity in Japan)
  and get a summer job to collect some money ^_^

I'm still wondering if I should go and study there in January too. I think it's not necessary to be there in January, and I'd planned to come back for christmas with my family. But now I'm not that sure if I want to give up on one month more, or if I even can. It might be so that the classes still continue in January. Besides, I'd really like to experience the Japanese new year. (Even though I think I should be with someone's family to really experience it.)

I've saved enough money now to pay for the flight there and back, but if I get enough money from the scholarships I might come here for christmas and then go back again after that. I'd actually like to buy a laptop with the saved money, if I get a scholarship, but I dunno... I have to think about that more. And find out about the class schedule, too, because that matters a lot.