Well since I haven't been on here in a few months, and the editing layout has changed quite a bit, I'm hoping that I'm doing this right and that this post ends up on my blog.

So. As you can probably tell from the date right underneath this post, I haven't written anything on here since February. I figured that since I have been freed from school for a few weeks now, I could find some time in my oh so busy (please note my sarcasm) summer to update anyone that's reading this on what's going on with AFS and myself.

On the 31st of May (my last day of school, woohoo!) my mom texted me while I was in line at school to return my books that AFS Japan had finally accepted me and that I really was/am going in about a month and a half! :D I had to severely restrain myself from screaming to anyone in close proximity to me that I would be flying halfway around the world this coming semester.

Consequently, I have acquired about 5 different books on Japanese in order to prepare myself as best I can to survive while I'm away. My most-used books include a book called 'Genki' that a friend of mine's older sister lent to me, and a Japanese grammar book by the brand Barron's (which, by the way, saved my BUTT at the end of April/beginning of May when I had to study for my AP Psychology test). The 'Genki' book I use mostly for kanji learning since it has 100+ kanji with step-by-step instructions on brush strokes and such, and the Barron's book has proven very helpful in helping me to understand how the HELL the Japanese form their sentences. (Curse you, SVO languages for handicapping me so!) Here's a link to the Barron's book and here's the Genki one.

I still haven't received an exact departure date so I haven't been able to pinpoint a time/buy a ticket for LA (my gate city). It's somewhere around the 20th of August so, soon enough! The only downside to this whole thing is that Japan is taking an awfully long time to send me back my application confirming that yes, I can apply for a visa. As such, I cannot visit my family in Mexico for the second summer in a row (unless it gets here SOON), and I'm very sad. :( But, hopefully they can understand that this is a huge deal. And who knows? Maybe next year I'll spend most of the summer down there since I've been wanting to do that to regain my fluency from when I was seven (it's ridiculous; I spoke without even thinking about it before until recently).

Let's see.... I don't have my family yet, but that's to be expected. I'm just assuming that I won't know until I'm in Japan, so if I do get that information sooner I'll be one happy duck. (Did I seriously just call myself a duck?)

Now, since I've been putting off my summer school homework by writing this post instead, I should probably get to that. Unfortunately, I say that, but I'll probably finish this post and switch right on over to my StumbleUpon tab. :) Sorry Mr. Rende, there's more important matters to attend to at the moment.

-Ellie

P.S. I PROMISE that I'll update more frequently when I actually have something to write about. Lately, not much has been going on so I haven't had all that much material to work with.

Interview Updates

Hello!

I've decided to procrastinate against my English essay and write another post.

To whoever actually read my last post will know that last Monday (the 13th), I had an interview by an AFS worker interviewer... person... and I'm happy to say that it actually went REALLY well. I wasn't really nervous. Like, at all. I thought that she would walk in the door and I would internally freak out a little. However, I was surprisingly calm, and as far as I could tell, she believed me to be an okay person. And thankfully. The woman was really nice, though. And she said that she liked talking to me in particular, so, fingers crossed! :) She said that we should hear whether AFS U.S. has accepted me really soon, and I should know about AFS Japan by around mid-April about. Yayayayayayayyy! I'm so excited you have no idea. This has been my dream since 4th grade, no exaggeration whatsoever. My second choice is France, but Japan would literally make the rest of my life worth everything.

Anyway, this wasn't meant to be super long; I just wanted to update about the interview. I'm hoping that news comes soon!

-Ellie

My Life is a Hot Mess

In less than 24 hours I will be face-to-face with my interviewer who will hopefully help in sending me off to Japan.

Has it really sunk in yet? That this could be the first step to a semester of amazing-ness? Not quite. It'll probably hit me when the lady walks into my living room and I'm like "Oh. I might just be going now."

I know that nothing is for sure right now, but a girl can hope, right? No? Well, I'm gonna anyway. ;P

I feel kind of silly for starting a blog that I might have to delete if everything doesn't go as planned, but the more I thought about it, the more appealing it sounded, and the urge finally caught me. At 11:30. On a school night. When I have to be up at 4am to go figure skating. Oh the joys of life.

So I should probably explain what my blog will (hopefully) be chronicling, right? I applied for a semester-long program in Japan through AFS, and it seems like I've been waiting A YEAR to get an interview and get the ball rolling... but I think it's only been something like... a week and a half since I submitted the application? Oh gosh. I only decided to do this for sure very recently, even though I'd been thinking about it since Freshman year of high school. I'm a Junior now. I am procrastination at its finest, let me tell you.

So yes, I would be going to Japan for my first semester of my Senior year, and even though I initially wanted to go for a year, ever since I was forced to go for a semester, I've realized that it'll be nice this way too. I just missed the deadline to go for the year. By something like 2 weeks. I was very upset... but hey, at least now I won't miss graduation. If I graduate on time.

Did I mention that if all goes well and I do end up going I might not graduate on time? >.< Yeah. My school's being kind of a butt about the whole foreign exchange program. :/ I need to go to a school that meets certain requirements in order for my school to take the credits I'll earn over in Japan. Oh, and I have to get a semester of AMERICAN Economics while I'm there. Yeah, like Japan's going to have that. So, I'm taking that over the summer whether I go or not, and I'll have that out of the way.

The only thing that's worrying me about getting accepted by Japan's AFS is the fact that I have a tattoo. When I realized that they might not be too cool with that I researched tattoos in Japan because when you think about it, how often do you hear about tattoos being super popular in Japan? Never. That's because they're associated with gangs, and I guess that if I went around showing mine off I'd look like I could manually tear your limbs off. Did I mention I'm 5' 3"? Geez, if only I COULD do that much damage. No one would EVER mess with me. Unfortunately, I don't think I could do much more than hurt myself while trying to punch someone else. Yes, that HAS happened before. No judging.

Anyway, the thing's pretty small and I hardly think a sunflower says yakuza: beware.

Darn. I just remembered that I have to clean my room tomorrow. T_T My room literally looks like I was attacked and I kicked everything in my struggle to get away. Or worse, like my cat got in here and decided to knock everything in sight over.

Wow. I definitely thought I wrote more than I did. Well, it IS 12:00. And that means I'm going to go to bed. Or nap. Considering it'll only be for 4 hours. Woohoooo!
Wish my luck tomorrow, if anyone ever reads this. Even if it's a year from know, because, you know, good thoughts like that can time-travel, and I could use as many good thoughts from the future as possible. So send 'em my way! :D

And I'm sorry if you fell asleep at your computer, but I appreciate your resilience to incredibly boring blog posts. And if you DID poke your eyes out with a hot poker....
I'm not paying for eye surgery OR a funeral.

Peaaaaace :)
Ellie