Important post.I'm sure you guys already know how much I've gotten into Japanese things recently. Knowing that is relevant to the following:
Well, it started off around the end of last summer. I had just finished my first textbook of Japanese (one year of college basically) that I had started in mid-May. I was pretty happy about it and ready to tackle the next textbook in the series. I was looking around for other ways BESIDES that next textbook to help improve my Japanese (back then it was NOT pretty). I ended up stumbling upon somewhere that had the topic of foreign exchange floating around. I don't remember where this was, but this sparked a huge search, on my part, for various high school exchange programs and the actual things and countries that they offered. By the second week of high school, I had made up my mind that going to Japan was definitely my number one choice in going somewhere. I thought that this whole thing was impossible and just a dream of mine, so I put it off until about late September when I came across a forum discussing foreign exchange to Japan through a program called AFS. I took a look into their program and requested a brochure to be sent to my house just so I could look at it. Keep in mind, I hadn't told my parents about this. I was too embarrassed to even bring it up. This was all for self reading at that point in time.
I checked the mail personally everyday until it came in just to make sure my parents wouldn't see it. Anyways, the thing came in the mail about a week later. I took it up to my room, read about the Japan program and though it was pretty cool. I emailed one of the area reps for the program and requested more information about the Japan program that they offered and I got a reply from some person wanting to help get me into the program. They said that I'd need my parents permission (duh), so I asked what would be a good way of bringing such a crazy topic up. I never got a reply. Bummer. Another dead period until about late November.
I remember I was getting a drink in my kitchen when my mom brought up the topic about me always talking to Asian girls (blah blah small eyes, blah, etc). She asked, "Harold, what's with you and those Chinese girls? Why are you learning Chinese? Do you want to goto China or something?" I told her I wasn't learning Chinese, but rather Japanese, and she's like, "Well do you want to goto Japan and get a Japanese wife or something?" I was like, "Yea, going to Japan would be pretty cool."
This was really the first time I had ever brought up anything related to Japan with my mother besides my lingual studies. The same day I entered the living room where my mom was reading the advertisements in the paper. She asked me where did I want to goto college at. I said, "I don't know."
I knew where I wanted to go. I had planned to somehow to become a foreign exchange student and attend a university in Japan. I thought of this because I'd be out of the control of my parents and able to do whatever I wanted without much of their say in it.
She kept stabbing at my question until I finally had the guts to come clean. I told her, "Ok, I want to goto college in Japan. I didn't want to say it because I know you'd hate the idea of me even going to a different country, or state at that." She replied with a big, "WHAT? That's not going to happen. Be serious. Where?" So, I got even more serious. "Ok mom, let me go get something really quick. I don't know how you're going to react to this, but we'll see."
I brought the brochure. I showed it to her. Her face went from curious to serious. This was a life-changing brochure to her. Basically, me handing this brochure decided my future. After she looked at it, she asked me, "Why do you want to goto college in Japan?"
I quickly let her know, "That's not for college, mom, that's high school foreign exchange."
When she heard that she just looked blankly at the corner of the room and I just started rambling on about how well of I'd be in the future if I went through the program, how good the program was, and all that good stuff. This was basically the most important conversation in the past 5 years we had had with each other. It was so crazy that she actually cried because she couldn't handle the fact that her son wanted to "leave her" to goto a different country for a long time when in reality I wanted to visit it. (It's like saying a parent goes to work to make money while they leave their kids at home VS a parent going to work, the connotation is totally different). Basically she got over it, and kind of accepted it.
Next was my dad. I was too afraid to bring it up. But I remember the night I did pretty well. He was on the phone and I asked him in the middle of the conversation to come to room because I needed to ask him something really quickly after her was done talking on the phone. He came in but didn't say anything. When he started to walk towards the door, I asked him to wait. I spilled the beans on everything. He seemed a little more agreeing to it than my mom. Of course, he didn't cry. He questioned the expenses more so than the permission.
Now that I was done breaking the news to my parents, I was ready for the application to the program. But, as things happened, I found a new program that seemed to have its strongest exchange base in Japan, so I looked into it. It was called
YFU (youth for understanding).
Wikipedia article on YFU. They offered scholarships to pay for the exchange in full or in part (this was probably the thing that swayed my parents permission). I presented this program to my parents. My dad seemed more agreeing again but avoided signing the papers FOREVER. My mom finally got over her feelings and was fully supporting my dream. It took about 2 weeks before I was able to confront my dad and ask him why he was stalling. He was stalling because he questioned my responsibility. He didn't know if I was responsible enough yet. After we got over that talk, he finally finalized everything and we sent in all the papers (around december 15) before the due date, which is 1/8/08 if I'm not mistaken. I had registered for the Japan Semester '08 and Japan Summer '08. I wanted (and still want) the semester the most because it's a 5 month stay vs the summer's 6 week (1.5 month) stay.
The only catch to the semester is that the only way I can go is if I get the scholarship (only 23 people in the U.S. will receive it) that will pay for everything except for a set amount between $600 - $2000 that I'll have to pay myself within two weeks of me receiving it (IF I EVEN RECEIVE IT). From what I've heard, if you apply to the summer scholarship for the Japan program, you'll usually get it if you're not a really bad kid and have an acceptable GPA, so I'm pretty sure I'll get the summer one, but I REALLY want the semester one much more...
To go into more detail, the scholarship acception process is based on 6 essays I had to write and an interview which I had about a week ago. The essays were written to the best of my ability and the interview was really hard, but the lady who interviewed me said that I did an excellent job and she said she recommended at the highest level possible to get the scholarship. She's basically the middle-man between me and the people who actually give out the scholarships. I'm
really hoping I get it.
Anyways, that's where I am right now. I'm waiting on the status of my scholarship application: whether I will get it or not.
I'll be notified of its status in April for all the scholarships that I applied for. There are 3 summer ones and 1 semester.
So, what does that mean for me and BGOAT?
This will mean I probably won't be online while you guys are (TOTALLY different time zone)
less activity (?), though I'll try my best to keep up as much as I can.
You'll have someone who can import stuff for you now
The time frames of my exchange are like this:
Semester (crossing fingers): Leave mid August, return early January
Summer: Leave late June, return early August
Anyways, yea. I just thought I'd like to put that out there for you guys to know. Sorry for the huge post, but I feel that it's pretty important for you guys to know. You guys are like my second family.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or PM me if it's personal.
This post has been edited by ハロルド: Jan 13 2008, 01:35 AM
So Guys...
ハロルド So Guys... Jan 13 2008, 01:33 AM
