Flickr Account Up!

Hey!

So I've started a flickr account and just uploaded pictures from my recent trip to Kobe to see the lights!  Check it out!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66770189@N02/

I'm new to this site, so I'll be figuring out how to organize things and get more pictures on there as soon as possible.

Finals Time = Hell Week(s)

Ughhhhh....It's finals time.  Next week starts the hellish time of test-taking, oral interviews, and handing in papers I procrastinated for too long.  In actuality, the week after next is the official finals week, but every professor thought, "Oh if I make my paper due/have the students take the test/etc. the week before finals, it'll give them a break so they can focus on the rest of their finals afterwards."  WELL, now it's more like TWO hellish weeks of finals coming up!  *sigh*

I am currently supposed to be writing a 13-page research paper due Tuesday and memorizing my presentation speech for tomorrow.  Instead, I'm typing here to give myself a breather and currently uploading a video to my youtube account.  :P

I know I don't post regularly, but I can assure I won't be posting these next two weeks due to these finals.  I apologize.

I will keep posting videos though, and I hope to start some kind of online photo account soon so I can share pictures from all the things I've done this semester.

Please stay tuned! 

Check out my youtube account if you haven't already ^___^
www.youtube.com/DaraintheClouds

RECAP: The Day It Hit Me That I Was In JAPAN!

SUNDAY. SEPTEMBER FOURTH.

On this day I met my host family.  It was this day I was scheduled to meet them (and then, go to their home with them…that is not ever explicitly stated during orientation week, by the way―SURPRISE!!  :P)  Anyways…that morning I had to move out of my temporary dorm, set all my luggage downstairs in the lobby, and then walk over to the CIE (the Center for International Education a.k.a. gaijin building) to wait FOREVER and in so much anxious anticipation for this Japanese family who was willing to let a foreign stranger live in their home with their children.

While I was waiting, I looked over my paper that told me information about the family.  There was a mom, a dad, a niece who was my age, and two small children (a girl of about 3 and a 1 year-old boy).  I was very excited because there would be adorable children and someone my age who can teach me how people of this generation actually speak!  Yes!  Luckily, some friends from my university waited with me in the waiting room (nothing fancy, just a small classroom next to other classrooms we would meet our future host families in).  I started to get the jitters while waiting, and I think it’s because a certain realization was dawning on me.

Eventually, I was called to meet my family.  One of the CIE staff greeted me and asked me what I liked to be called.  I heard other staff ask other students the same question because some people had names that would be hard for Japanese people to pronounce.  LoL, my boyfriend, Andrew, was asked if his family could call him “Andy,” and he said no.  Andrew does not like that nickname at all.  In my case, I pronounced my name as “Sandara” and also said that “Dara” would be fine (how funny that that name would become a very much used nickname during my time here in Japan).  Then we went to go see the family in the next classroom over.

We met the family in the hallway as we looked for the classroom.  I was a bit unsettled because there was a mom, a dad, two small children, and another girl?  She looked to be in grade school and definitely not my age.  I wondered if she was another daughter or someone else who lived in the house, and I wondered what the niece was like then.  I also wondered if we’d all fit in their car with all my humungous luggage.  The staff member who was to play the intermediary role and interpreter for us seemed to also be concerned, and once we had settled down at a table, he asked about the other child.  The mom replied that she was a neighbor friend who often visited so she had accompanied them to this meeting.

The meeting then commenced, and we went over the contract that the family filled out with preferences and house rules.  As we did this, the baby peed on himself and on the floor, one of the children knocked over the tea served to the family, and the interpreter and other staff tried to help clean up, all the while being very embarrassed.  (I should have known craziness would ensue once I live with this family.  Jay kay.  Jay kay.  I really did think it was funny and cute.  I mean, they’re kids.  What are you going to do?  Press the pause button on them?)

As far as the meeting itself, a lot of the rules about there being an order to who showers and goes into the bath at night, dinnertime, curfew, etc. were all written out quite strictly on the contract itself, but then as each rule was brought up for clarification and discussion, the mother would actually contradict her own writing and say things like, “oh no there’s not really an order” and “dinnertime is between these two hours but we can save you the food if you come home late” and “there’s not really a curfew; just please let us know when you’ll be home” and so on.  Some things that were required were that I clean my own room at least once a week, I hang and pick up and fold my own laundry after the mom washes it, and that I help clean the dishes up at night.  The mom said she’d show me everything when we got to their house.  That dawning realization became stronger as I realized I was really going home with them and going to sleep in their house.

The meeting went pretty smoothly overall, and things looked good.  There was only one thing that irked me though.  At one point we went over my allergies and foods I disliked.  I’m allergic to apples, and I really don’t like onions.  I really don’t like onions (especially raw or big cooked slices of mleh).  HOWEVER, I will tolerate it if I have to.  Anyhoo, when we got to this part, the translator asked me if I was for reals (not in those words, but yeah), and I said, yeah, but that I’ll eat it if it’s not in big chunks or raw.  I said that it just was at the bottom of my eatables.  She then turns to the host mom and says something along the lines of, “how childlike” (in Japanese kodomoppoi [子供っぽい]).  This upset me.  Disliking ONE vegetable does not make me childlike.  Urrrrgggghhh!!  Anyways, later on I cleared it up with my host mom about my onion situation and ate miso soup almost every night at my homestay with onions all up in it!!  Take that!

After the meeting, we got into a minivan, and my new host mom chatted me up on the way to the parking lot.  She seemed really nice and chillax.  The minivan belonged to her mom since they could not all fit in their normal car, much less with me and my suitcases.  This was my biggest worry coming up.  Can my suitcases fit?

I got into the car, and I kind of just sat quietly the whole time unless they asked me questions.  I was really nervous.  When we got to the seminar house, I saw Andrew just packing up and about to leave with his host family.  That made me feel better.  I smiled at him as I nervously helped my host parents get my suitcases.  OMG, my poor host dad.  They were so heavy.  I saw the pain lol.  Back in the car, the same continued of just being asked questions and me trying not to be too nervous.  By the way, kids do NOT buckle up in Japan and jump around and all about the inside of the vehicle.  The mom also sat carrying her BABY in the FRONT SEAT.  This madness….I don’t even know what to say.  I talked about this with my other homestay friends, and they noticed the same thing and were just as appalled as I was.  The thing is, as much as we want to say something, it’s definitely not our place.  :/

The house was about 20 to 30 minutes away by car.  When we arrived, I was a little disappointed that the house wasn’t more traditional-looking, but who am I to judge?  The house was very cute and narrow, regardless, and it was what I expected to see.  When we entered (omg, my poor host dad, again), he brought in my suitcases and lugged them upstairs—UPSTAIRS—to my new room.  I kept saying sorry for how heavy my suitcases were, and the parents kept saying that it was ok.  My room was super cute, and I noticed a lot of IKEA décor and furniture pieces.  My bed was a futon on the floor, and I also had a desk and shelving unit.  There’s not too much to describe about my room, but if you watch my video tour, you’ll get to see what it looked like.  My parents then left me to unpack and relax.

As I unpacked and put my things in their new place, I noticed that there was quite a bit of dust on…well, everything.  I think my host family cleaned my room at one point, but not recently enough because then I became really uncomfortable and had the urge to clean everything.  There were some hairs and dust balls in the drawers of things and on the floor and on the bed and on the pillow and yeah… I’m not a neat freak, but I really don’t like letting dust build up or particles in bed, which there also were.  BUT, everything else was really nice regardless.  (I cleaned up that room really well the following weekend since school started the next day.)

They called me down for dinner, and I ate with the children.  The host mom and dad don’t really eat dinner, they told me.  They’re both on diets?  The host niece wasn’t there that day.  I would meet her later.  I helped clean up and wash dishes, and then we talked some more and got to know each other a little better.  We went over my schedule and how to use the bath.  I took my first night shower in Japan, but I didn’t use the Japanese bath, or o-furo.  I wasn’t ready to do that yet.  I said good night and went to my room.  I got ready for my first day of classes, cleaned up the bed as best as I could, turned on the fan, turned off the lights, and laid myself to sleep.  Then, at that very moment, it hit me.  It really hit me at last.  I’m in Japan.

ORIENTATION WEEK

Oh my goodness.  I have no excuse for why I have not written in over a month except that I’ve been having too much fun.  Though the truth includes lack of access to internet for a bit, inability to edit videos, etc….still, no excuse for my absence from the internets.  I can remember the Monday of orientation week pretty well, but the rest is blur.  Here is my summary of orientation. 

Also,  I have finally uploaded edited videos of the seminar houses/dorms so here are the goodies to make up for it:

LINKS!!

Kansai Gaidai Seminar House 4 Tourhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDNuz315zzQ

Kansai Gaidai Dorm Tour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQWBQco3BIU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

 

Monday - August 29

Took a campus tour that consisted of way too much walking.  The tour guide lady made us walk up all the way to the 3^rd floor of the library, and when we got to the 3^rd floor, all she had to say was, “This is the 3^rd floor.  We have more books here.”  Then she had us walk back down ALL THOSE STAIRS.  Now, you may think I’m complaining about walking too much, but that 3^rd floor tour was completely unnecessary, and you have to remember that I’ve been living in Florida for the past  five years or so where walking is at the bottom of the transportation totem pole.  Floridians mostly drive everywhere or take escalators.  Yeah…I know…I’m a lazy butt now.  That will change in Japan though.

That afternoon I also took my placement test.  OMG, don’t even get me started on that mess.

Tuesday - August 30 to Friday – September 2

The rest of orientation week was full of more official things to do like opening a bank account, paying for my housing arrangements (homestay fees and a deposit), liability fees, tours of where everything we need is, safety workshops, and just asking questions about things I thought up randomly.  Liiiiiiiiike, “How do I join a club?” “Can my parents mail me boxes to my mailbox on campus?” “If a creeper guy touches me on the street, can I punch him in self-defense?” and so on.

I can expand on the answers to these questions and the processes mentioned above in later posts if peeps are interested.  Just message me.  Really…..anytime.  I’m lonely and bored  and would like something to do and people to interact with.

AAaaaaanyways….

I went karaoking during orientation week, and it was so awesome!!  We went to this place called Jankara, and it was kinda pricey, but the atmosphere was really nice.  We went with an old friend from our university who had done the JET programme and continued to live in Japan with her boyfriend afterwards.  Jankara is located on the fourth floor of a building near Hirakata city’s train station.  You take a sketchy, tiny elevator up, and then you’re brought into a bright and boldly colored room with drink dispensers and a front desk.  You pay for whatever karaoke package you want (how many hours, alcoholic drinks or not, etc.), and then you get assigned a room, which could range from a small room the size of a small public restroom with a table and two couches that line the walls on two sides to a super big room with couches that line most of the walls and one to two tables.

Most asian karaoke place in America (from my experiences karaoking in New York and Florida) usually use a typical family home-style karaoke machine in which you enter codes for what songs you want to sing, and the codes are usually in large phonebook-like tomes.  However, the nicer karaoke places in Japan like Jankara just have a touch screen device that you can type in the artist name or song.  The thing will search for what it thinks you want, and then you can enter it into a queue.

I highly recommend  doing karaoke, either in Japan or asian karaoke places in America.  It’s a great stress reliever, super fun, and just a great bonding experience with your friends because you definitely embarrass yourself as you sing and discover the awesome let-loose ridiculousness you and your friends have inside as you drink and belt out songs you know you can’t sing well….heh heh.

 As you can see, the karaoke was the highlight of my week.  I continue to enjoy and be obsessed with it, too.  :P

From now on, posts will either be RECAP EPISODES since so much has happened that I have not written about yet, or they will just be normally titled posts for more recent events.  There you go~!

I'm in Japan, and It hasn't hit me yet :D

So….I’ve been in Japan for about a week now, and I love it!!  Well, there have been some hard parts (:P) to be honest, but before I delve into anything, I want to relay this week’s past events.  (And omg, this week was so loooooooong (:P) ).

August  28^th Saturday – The Overnight Airport Stay

I traveled through time zones and over where the Bering land bridge used to be to get to Tokyo, Japan.  The ride was over 13 hours long, and I watched two movies, three TV shows, played hangman, slept, and tried not to go out of my mind.  Luckily, 9 of the 11 UF students going rode this leg of the trip with me, so we were able to keep each other company.

When we got to Tokyo, customs went by rather quickly actually, and we had no issues with baggage or anything.  However, when we re-checked our bags, we found out that our flight got delayed.  We were planning on catching the last limousine bus out of the KIX airport (where we to finally end up at) to Hirakata City in order to make it to the international dorms before the 11 pm curfew.  So…..we decided to maybe just take a taxi straight there, but when we got to KIX with our massive and beastly luggage, we ended up wasting time debating to take the taxi or stay at a hotel for the night (since the taxi turned out to be more expensive than we thought).  In the end, 3 of us decided to stay at the airport hotel, and the rest of us had an overnight stay in the airport itself.

My god.  I will never do that again.

I slept maybe 3 hours fully.  We lugged our bags all around the airport in search of food and bathrooms, and then finally we settled in a hidden corner where the airport mailbox/post office area was.  We thought that this was probably the best location since it seemed deserted and out of the way.  Unexpectedly, it turned out to be the a high traffic area for security and the janitorial staff to stomp, STOMP, STOMP through and clank, CLANK, CLANK through while rolling large squeaky equipment and carrying quite jangly keys.  (insert angry face).

Anyways, I ended up a cranky, uncomfortably unwashed, and sleep-deprived foreigner in Japan after that night.  That’s not to say we didn’t have fun.  We took lots of video and pictures and laughed and talked for hours.  We explored a lot of that airport, and generally enjoyed our night to the best of our abilities.

August 29^th Sunday – The Longest Day of My Life After That Mess Last Night

I ended up changing and cleaning myself as best as I could with a baby wipe around 3 to 5 am that morning.  My friends and I brushed our teeth and stuff and loaded al our luggage onto those luggage carts that airports have.  We went up to the top floor of the airport to watch our first Japanese sunrise and took video and pictures.  It was really fun, and then we navigated our way to food and then to our friends who stayed at the hotel.  We ended up taking that shuttle bus (cost 2000 yen) at 7:10 am or so for about an hour and a half. 

Watching the scenery go by was really awesome.  I was so sleepy, but my first real glimpses of Japan were so amazing.  It looked so different but at the same time….normal.  There were mountains to my right in the horizon and sea to my left.  There was only one actual Japanese native on the bus, and the rest of the passengers were made up of us 11 UF students and one other international student from Alabama (we met up with the 11^th one at KIX and made new friends J ).

The bus let us off in Hirakata city, and then we took taxis to the seminar houses (the international dorms).  Those taxi drivers lifted our super heavy suitcases and had to drive with their trunks open and a single rope holding our bags in.  I was scared the whole time something would fall off during the 10 or 15 minute drive.  Then these guys lifted our suitcases back out, too.  Just fyi, these guys were grandfather-aged.  I was super impressed.  It ended costing about 1900 yen to get from the bus stop to the seminar house.

It was hilarious moving in because the guy in charge was like, “How many people are coming?”  Four of our friends were going to stay in a different house, so I was like, “8 of us.”  The caretaker then asked, “3 or 4 more?”  “No, there are 8 of us.”  He went and got some papers for us to sign in and receive for orientation and then asked again, “2 or 3 more people?”  I wanted to yell, “NO, man!  EIGHT!! So 6 more!!”  All that I did was repeat myself until two more people from our group came and then another girl who came by herself and left him once I was able to lug my suitcases up to my room.

Omg, and then the first thing I did was take a wonderful, very-much needed, long, and delicious shower.  Then I went to another dorm room where some of my friends were gathered.  Andrew, my boyfriend who was also put up in the same house, informed me of some of our friends from the other house wanting to go out and eat.  I said something along the lines of, “Hey, Andrea and peeps wanna go out for dinner or something soon.  You guys wanna go?”  They stared at me and then laughed, “Sandra, it’s 10:30 in the morning!”

It wouldn’t be until the next Saturday that I would finally have the time and day right.

Anyways, we went out to eat, met new people, walked and explored the area around our dorm, bought food at the convenience stores (OMG AND THEY ARE CONVENIENT!  They actually sell real food and things you actually need and can use), and got adjusted.

The rest of day felt like forever until it got dark and I went to bed around 9 pm.

WAIT!  I remember what else happened.

I know I got my cell phone, and it cost like 7000 yen up front for a prepaid plan and from then on it will cost 3000 yen every two months for unlimited texts and emails and 30 minutes of actual phone calling LOLZ.  Apparently, people rarely call here and just use email as our form of texting.  It’s been super useful for getting people together to do things and just communication in general (DUH lol), but yeah, if you come to Japan to study abroad for at least a semester, get a cell phone.

I know we explored the clothing stores that are about 3 minutes or less by walking from the house I’m in.  Japanese clothes are super cute and can be SUPER SMALL.  My butt will probably never fit into most of the shorts and pants they sell there.  I tried.

NEXT POST:

August 30^th to September 2^nd –Orientation Week 

I LEAVE IN 2 DAYS WHHUUUUT~

Last night I spent a stressful few hours packing.  I've been super overwhelmed lately with last minute financial issues, moving my sister in to her first dorm ever for her freshman year in college, and making sure everything will go smoothly.  Mostly everything is ready to go, so I'm like, *sigh of relief*.  My baggage finally has everything in it that I need except for the things I'm currently still using that will go into my carry-on.


Other than that, I've also been freaking out about not having studied enough Japanese in order to be ready for the reading/writing and oral placement tests that will be administered this coming week.  To be completely honest, I have reviewed two thirds of the first of two textbooks that I should know all the grammar and kanji of.  Let me tell you, my kanji knowledge sucks right now so I'm trying to revive whatever's left from a summer of lazin' with kanjibox.

Btw, what is this about drowning kitties??? O.o
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LoL, I walked away from this and then read what I wrote. Gaaah, I hope these posts are understandable and interesting.  I will try my best, and I hope I'll get better from here on out.  I think it's because I'm stressed that I feel like what I'm writing is bland and meh.
Ok, enough hatin'. 

Here's what one of my most recent shopping lists looked like.  Enjoy.

I never did get the turtle neck, but I found plenty of sweaters and a scarf.  I keep thinking I have everything I need, and then my parents are like, "What about snacks in case you get hungry at the airport?" "What about benadryl?  You know you get food allergies a lot."  "Mi hija, don't forget the midol and tums!"

Today is Wednesday.  I leave Friday.  My mom has made another shopping list that includes a flashlight ("You never know.  There might be earthquakes and no electricity."), more midol, paper duct tape, and sandwich baggies.  I'll be taking care of that tonight.

I'll be uploading a video to intro vlogging.  It's so derp, but whatevs, g.  I'm so tired so it'll have to do.

So what's this blog all about?

I am a University of Florida student going to study abroad in Osaka, Japan at the end of this summer for the 2011-2012 academic year! Yeah!~

I am one of 11 UF students going to study at Kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata city.  I fly out of the country in late August, and I can't wait!! XD

Thus, this a blog to document my time from the pre-departure -adventure activities and processes to and through the end of my adventure.  I want to promote studying abroad in general as well because I know this is about to be the experience of a lifetime for me.  Hopefully, as you, my readers, follow me on this super amazing journey, you'll want to study abroad to (or if you're not in school anymore, just go and visit other countries).
Note:  My other posts will include videos and pictures~

If you have any questions, feel free to leave one in the comments or shoot me an e-mail.  For now I will just provide some informational links below.  :)

Kansai Gaidai
http://www.kansaigaidai.ac.jp/asp/

University of Florida's International Center (more info on study abroad opportunities for UF students)
https://www.abroad.ufic.ufl.edu/

Freeman-Asia Scholarship (moolah for studying abroad in Asia)
http://www.iie.org/programs/freeman-asia