Reason to Party

I HAVE A HOST FAMILY!!!

After a day that was not so great (AP exams, bleh), I finally received my host family/school/all that jazz info!!! Therefore turning it into AN OFFICIALLY AMAZING FANTASTIC DAY.

So, here's the news:

Rotary made a little bit of a mistake when they told me I'd be living in Kyoto Prefecture- whoops. I'll actually be living in Shiga Prefecture, but my city is really, really close to Kyoto city. I forsee many trips there :)

I'll be living in Konan-shi, Shiga Prefecture. That's where my house is, but my school is in Kusatsu-shi, which is a fair deal away for an everyday commute. And my Rotary club is in Otsu, which is even farther. And of course, Kyoto's not too far away :) I sorta had my heart set on Kyoto since that's *ahem* where they told me I'd be going, but I'm still really happy with where I am. An exchanger told me it's best to be in a place that's not too big and not too far away from a big city, so I pretty much got exactly what she said was best :) And since it's not in a big, big city like Kyoto, there'll be less English, hooray!!!

My school is Kousen High, in Kusatsu-shi, and it looks to be co-ed (yayyy!). It also looks pretty big. Or maybe it just LOOKS big from the picture. It's also a Christian school, or so what-I-think-is-their-website tells me. I'm not terribly religious, so this shall be interesting for me. Very interesting indeed. I honestly didn't even know there were Christian schools in Japan, so I have no idea what to expect. I hope it's not one of those schools where everyone is studystudystudy, because I hear it's harder to make friends at those schools...

But anyways, I also have a host family, but they haven't contacted me yet, so I don't want to put up info without their permission. Suffice to say, they seem fantastic :) And I think my host dad speaks pretty good English, so HOPEFULLY that won't harm my learning of Japanese. Maybe he can give me lessons or something. I want to learn the language as fast as I can, so I will try to use as little English as possible.

That's about it for now. I'm meeting with my rep soon so he can give me some more in depth info (like when school starts, pictures, official documents for my visa, etc).

I've also changed the blog title from "Kyoto Madness" to "Konan Madness" for obvious reasons. If I move out of Konan-shi after I leave my first host family, I'll change the title accordingly.

HOORAY FOR FINALLY GETTING MY HOST INFO!!!