*sigh* I swear once I am actually in Japan these blog entries will become more frequent. Right now there isn't a lot of terribly exciting news to report. Well, it's a little exciting since I am very close to being completely ready to go. I have my ticket, confirmation from Kansai Gaidai, access to the Kansai Gaidai website which has detailed instructions about my program, my insurance card (which I still have to pick up from school but it is there), talked to a financial counselor and I received one of my scholarships (for $5,000!) so yay! And *whew*. All that took a lot of time and a lot of stress, but it got done. There was also the countless amount of paperwork that I had to do as well, had to sign a bunch of documents and send out a ton of emails to make absolutely sure everything is in order.

So, now that all that is taken care of, there are TWO more important things left to do *smashes head into wall*. But then that's it!

1. I have to get my student visa. Which I can't do because Kansai Gaidai hasn't sent my Certificate of Eligibility yet. I filled out and sent in the "Address Form" they emailed me (yes another form) so they are suppose to send it straight to my house. And they haven't yet. Grr.

2. I have to get all my vaccinations for the trip. This shouldn't be too hard to take care of, and I am going to try to do it very soon. Just got to get a hold of my medical records then call up Sage Medical at DePaul to make an appointment. I'm hoping they might have a better idea of what kinds of vaccinations I'll need, so far with my research I only know I have to get a vaccination for Japanese encephalitis. It's administered over a month (or 14 days if there isn't enough time) so I should probably go do that... Though the website I'm looking at says it's mostly for rural travelers which I won't be. But I'll get it to be safe. Who knows, I might go visit some rural areas, I will be in Japan for a while.

Sometime after July 10th I should also be getting a message telling me whether or not I will be staying with a host family. I really hope I will be. REALLY, REALLY hope. Being in dorm will make learning Japanese sooo much harder. Not to mention I'll have no one in the know to ask my millions of questions to. AND it will just suck in general! I've never stayed in a dorm before, but I haven't heard good things.

So that's all there is to report. My flight leaves on August 30th. So until about late August I will have nothing to do and nothing to report. I will try and update the blog anyway. Hey it's not like I have anything better to do. Seriously, I don't. This shall be my only distraction from Youtube, fanfiction, and my ever growing obsession with Star Trek.