Back and Better Than Ever!

Man it feels like forever.
Sorry I haven't posted much.

A month ago, I got grounded. And during this time SO MANY THINGS have happened! I feel maybe this was for the best. I have so much news!
And for those of you who I have not been able to talk to recently due to schedule things and time differences this should REALLY catch you up :)
Here we go:

1) On January 27,2010 I received my host family information. I will be living in Nishinomiya City in the Prefecture of Hyogo. It is a coastal city with a population of about 480,000 (I rounded up). It also is home to the Koshien Stadium where the Hanshin Tigers Baseball team plays home games and also holds Japan's annual high school baseball championships.
I will be going to an all girls private high school. It seems like a very nice school and pretty impressive. The school trip will be to Okinawa which I totally can't wait for.
My host family has four people. I have my dad and mom and two older host sisters and they also have a hamster. They seem like very nice people! I emailed them on Friday and today received a response from them. VERY EXCITING!
They own an Ancestral Kimono Shop. It has been in my dad's family for 120 years, since the Meiji Era! My host mom practices Tea Ceremony and the koto. My oldest host sister has been to a college here in my state and attended for two years! And then my second oldest host sister will be coming to the US in the fall for college as well. I wonder if she will also come to my state? That would be very cool!

2) I got my Visa! I really love the Japanese visa. It is very pretty. I kinda look a bit scary in the picture though (it is a photocopy of my passport picture), but that's okay I guess. It also had my Certificate of Eligibility attached to it which was pretty interesting. I hadn't seen it till that point.

3) I just had my last official lesson for Japanese class with my teacher. It was pretty sad. I still can't quite accept the fact that I won't be taking lessons from her anymore as her student. But it's not goodbye just yet! We will be having one last little thing with me and her and Torrie in about two weeks. Just a fun day there. We will dress up in kimono again like we did a few years ago and we will eat. I'm not sure if we will be cooking it all together or if Akemi-Sensei will be making it and then we will eat. But whatever it is or how it gets made, I'm sure it will be tasty.

4) Recently I had the Japan Country Conference Call. Basically it's where people going abroad with AFS (in this case to Japan) sign up for one of two dates and get the chance to meet others going to their destination country and can ask a returnee questions about their experience. I learned quite a bit more, met another person who has now joined the Facebook group, met two people I already knew from the facebook group, and met new kids.
I found out that only 21 people are going to Japan this year through AFS. I was a bit surprised actually! I thought that there would be many more of us going! But I guess it has been hard finding host families this year. Oh well. I can't wait to meet everyone anyhow. And the plane ride will still rock this world.

5) I have talked with my boss and either this week or next week (I think that there was some sort of miscommunication or something because I'm not sure.) will be my last week of work. So we'll see how that turns out.

6) My dad sent an email to a columnist we know here who writes for the local newspaper. He thought it would be interesting to do a local story about me going to Japan. She suggested that I might instead write a blog for the paper instead. So today I went in to talk to the editor. He seems very excited about it, as am I. So I need to work some more on my title for the blog and soon I will have my first post up!
Once we start it off and I have my page up on their site for it I will post a link for sure!

...Alrightie...that's about all I can think of (sorry it is a tad long) but that's a pretty good condensed version for now I think.

I don't know when I will post next. It might not even be until the very end, before the rocket start of the beginning of what I look to be the best year ever (!) .
Keep following though! There's definitely going to be more to come :)

Thanks,

**Betania