pdo and more

Recently, I had the AFS pre-departure orientation. It took up almost an entire day, and was more fun than I expected! I met a bunch of people who are going to Japan, all seemed pretty fantastic. Unfortunately, two people I met are not going to Tokyo. :( I was surprised by the number of people going to Tokyo, though, it was impressive. The PDO only magnified my excitement. Strangely enough, the girl who was in charge of the Japan group had stayed a summer in China. So...she couldn't exactly answer culture specific questions, seeing as the two countries are completely different. It was still helpful in some ways.
On another note, as of now, SCHOOL IS OVER. Exams were last week, and I also had my last piano recital of the academic year yesterday, so the relief is immense. Yay! Now I have about a week of "free" time. Most of which will be spent frenziedly packing. And the rest will be squandered away reading, watching sherlock, and listening to the POTC soundtrack. Of course, I will not waste any time!
I've kept in contact with my host family (or rather my mother and sister). I am ridiculously excited to meet them. I still have to ask a bunch of questions before I leave. I bought them a bunch of gifts this past week. Suzuka, my sister, had her birthday on Saturday, so I emailed her (and bought an extra present). She told me she's looking forward to celebrating my birthday with me in Japan. :) My birthday's July 4th, it's going to be my first time having my birthday in a place where it's not a national holiday. 
Alrighty, I'm off. I'll write in the near future. Ciao.
~Elizabeth

Host Family!

A few days ago, I received my host family information. It's all pretty exciting :) I'll be staying in Tokyo, I've already explored my neighborhood and the district surrounding it with the help of the ever-fantastic google maps street view. It seems like a nice area. It's an eight minute walk from a JR station, as well as a bunch of shops. I have a host sister age 11 and a host brother age 13. I'm an only child, so it's going to be a huuuuge change for me. I'm nervous, to be honest.
I sent them a letter the day I found out the information. I'm debating whether or not I will phone them this weekend, I probably should... There's unfortunately not much written about the family on the AFS website, I guess I'll just have to wait and find out.

acceptance!

So, today I (finally) was accepted to AFS Japan. I'm pretty happy about it! Despite being in the middle of APs, I've decided to post again.
I'm a junior in high school, and I've studied Japanese for the equivalent of 5 years. I'm currently in AP Japanese, and my test is this Thursday. Needless to say, I'm incredibly nervous. I love the Japanese language. I'm a huge language nerd, and to be honest, Japanese grammar is awesome. It's... beautiful. It's SOV and agglutinative! wow, that was geeky In university, I would like to study Linguistics. I'm fascinated by languages and how they work. 
Next year, I might end up studying University Japanese at the college near my school. I hope it works out :) 
I'm really looking forward to this program. I was so disappointed that I couldn't go last year, so it's really heightening the excitement this year. To be honest, one thing I'm really excited about is the food. :D I'm interested in Japanese culture, and I like some contemporary Japanese literature. By the way... Last year, I went to a FANTASTIC language immersion camp in conjunction with Concordia University. It was honestly the best four weeks of my life, and I want more than anything to go back some day, maybe even as an instructor. I met so many awesome people and the teachers were excellent. They have a ton of languages, so check it out! http://www.concordialanguagevillages.org/newsite/
Hm, random stuff about me... I've played the piano since I was little, and I sing. I love music and good books. That's about it. 
Now to wait for the host family information....

hiya

well, hello children. 

And, already I have established myself as creepy. ookay.

The name's Elizabeth. I created this blog to (hopefully) log my impending trip to Japan with AFS this summer, 2012. I planned to go to Japan last year, but that did not work out as planned. In short, my parents are super overprotective, and after the Tohoku earthquake and the nuclear disaster, they basically said, "Send our daughter to a place where she could get radiation and DIE? Of course not, young lady!" So after much shedding of tears, I agreed to (well, it's not like I had a choice. more like it was forced upon me) postpone my trip and attempt to go to Japan the next year. So, here I am. Doing the arduous application to AFS and hoping they'll accept me. I'm mentally stable (or so I think), so there shouldn't be a problem with getting accepted.

I will write more about myself, why I'm going to Japan and all those et ceteras somewhere in the near future. Until then....
Pardon the terrible pun of my url.

(if you don't get it, sorry :P nihon means Japan in Japanese)