Intro

Here's my first post. I know it's waaaay waaaay early, but I thought I'd start with all my preparations for going to Nagoya. Hopefully it'll be helpful for some people. I know a lot of you already know this information, but I'm a second year student at the University of Memphis, and I am headed to Nagoya Gakuin University in September. I was Japanese Culture Club President this past year, and have completed the 300 level of Japanese at my school. I have been interested in Japan since elementary school, and now I finally get to go. I've only have ever been to Canada, so this is kind of a big deal for me. I don't think I'm going into it naively, and I have politely taken the same advice over and over again from people. Let's just cross our fingers.
I got my passport finally, and I heard back about a few of my scholarships. I applied U of M's study abroad scholarship, the Freeman-Asia, the Bridging, and the NSEP Boren scholarship. I got 6k from my school and I got an unofficial acceptance email for the NSEP. My parents were biting their fingernails and asking me every other day when I was going to find out about thie NSEP, and I finally heard back yesterday. I also attended my school's study abroad orientation.
The video that they showed was interesting. A lot of it was common sense, but of course as a precaution they have to tell everybody. Keep your hands and arms inside at all times, look before you leap, and stop doing cocaine. Actually, there was an obscene amount of drugs in that video. Not like a voice over about marijuana and smoke wavering up, but people cutting white powder with razors and heroin bubbling in a spoon over a flame. DON'T HAVE SEX WITH THE LOCALS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, and if you do, wear a condom. sound advice. I'd like to think that we don't need these kinds of things, but I glanced across the table at the guy going to costa rica and changed my mind.
Actually, one thing that made me go, "hmm good point" was the fact of be prepared for natural disasters. oh yeah, earthquakes. gosh, I did kind of forget about it. Also, having an open mind doesn't mean putting yourself in an unsafe situation. Just a good "duh" moment for me.
NSEP requires me to go to an orientation in June, so of course I'll update with info on that. I don't really know what to expect.
I went to the bookstore today to grab some thank you cards, and flipped through a travel journal. I'll pass on the advice printed one of the pages to you, my darlings,"bring a gluestick for impromptu collages."