Leaving in the morning

I give you an incredibly exciting picture of my half-packed suitcases from this afternoon (they are now entirely packed).

(You can also see my incredibly packed bookcase and the pile of books that don't fit on my bookcase.  Yay!)

P.S. This picture thing was mostly to test that I can upload photos from my camera to my computer, thanks to my handy-dandy turn-an-XD-card-into-something-you-can-actually-read converter.

I'll be leaving for Japan tomorrow (well, actually, today, now that it's after midnight) morning, so I probably won't have internet (or sanity) for a while.  I'll post as soon as I have internet (which will hopefully be at the hotel in Tokyo), but I may be horribly jet-lagged and not make any sense.  So consider yourselves warned.

I should probably sleep, but instead I will double check that I actually packed the things I'm supposed to pack.  Hurrah.

Four days 'til departure

So, clearly, the GRE did not kill me.  Although it was like going to a secret prison.  It turned out that the directions in the email from the GRE test center pointed toward an equity union, and the address they gave me didn't exist.  When I finally found the testing center, it was in a building marked "Kaiser Permanente."  And then they made me empty my pockets, and I was only allowed to carry my ID and a key to my locker.  And then I got my picture taken and they ran a metal detector over me and there were CAMERAS in the TEST ROOM CEILING.  It.  Was.  Ridiculous.

But now it's over, and I am still alive!  And I didn't even fail it, which is an added bonus!

And I really need to finish packing.

I spent much of yesterday randomly singing for my old choir*, being bitten by FIVE THOUSAND MOSQUITOES**, hanging out with cool homeschooling kids and parents, watching a horde of small children punching my going-away-party-balloons, hanging out with cool homeschooling kids and parents some more***, and reading my little brother Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.****

Also, a bunch of exceedingly nice people gave me exceedingly nice presents, and for that I thank them, and also rearrange my partially packed suitcases.  Seriously, I need to get on this packing thing.

In other news, I got an email from my advisor telling me that he could meet me when I come to Nagoya from Tokyo as long as I come after 3 p.m. (and for that I am so grateful, because, seriously, I thought I would have to find my way around Nagoya alone).  That's not really a problem at all, since there's a Shinkansen (bullet-train) from Tokyo to Nagoya that gets in at 3:21 p.m.  The only problem is that I can't figure out how to get to the Shinkansen.  On a whim, I tried Google maps, which worked surprisingly well...except that it's convinced the only way to get to the Shinkansen is to take a $60 train.  What the heck?  It's not even a long train; it says the train ride is 7 minutes.  Compare that to the Shinkansen, which is an hour and forty-one minutes for $45, and you have to wonder if the train is made of solid gold.  So I'm trying to figure out a way to use the Tokyo Metro to get to the Shinkansen instead of paying $8.57/minute.

A final note: I have forgotten all of my useful Japanese.  I know how to say "sexual generative organ" (生殖器) and "marijuana" (大麻) and "friction" (摩擦) and "the act of carrying a coffin out of a home or temple" (出棺), but I cannot for the life of me remember how to say "train timetable."  GAH.  Add that to my normal stutter in Japanese, and my first few weeks are going to be mildly terrible, from a speaking perspective.

*My old choir director decided that she would make me sing the Japanese verses of "Tonari no Totoro" rather than braving them herself.

**OW, the bites itch so much.  Ugh, I hate mosquitoes.  Or at least female mosquitoes.  Dude mosquitoes are okay.

***Maybe this is news to some of you, but I actually was homeschooled (until I was 15-ish).  Then again, it's still news to some people that I'm 20 years old...  YES, I AM 20.

****We're trying to finish it before I leave.  We haven't even gotten to the second task yet. I leave on Monday.  Yeaaaaaah.  We're going to have to read A LOT.

Two weeks 'til departure

I finally got my housing assignment, so that's all settled.  All that's left is for me to hop on the plane and fly to Japan.

Well, that and pack.

I really need to start on the packing thing.

Speaking of packing, I spent FOUR HOURS shopping for business casual clothes today with my aunt.*  If you're one of those poor, misguided people who ever tried shopping with me, you'll know it's like pulling teeth, except that with teeth at least you can sedate the patient.  But my aunt was really, really patient, and I managed to not punch anyone through a wall, and I now have a business casual wardrobe.  I AM NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN.  These clothes better last me through my whole grad school career!

In other other news, I'm trying to get through as much of my kanji book and my grammar book as I can before I get to Japan.  I'm 1565 kanji in, but only about 120 grammar forms.  Ugggggh.  I'm going to feel so dumb for about three weeks and then I'll stop stuttering (mostly) and hopefully remember to grammar when I'm speaking.  Too bad I have to meet my advisor before then.

Speaking of my advisor, I still need to get him a hello-I-would-really-like-it-if-you-don't-think-I'm-a-culturally-insensitive-stuttering-moron present.

SO MUCH TO DO.  SO LITTLE TIME.

*Not my biological aunt.  She's my adopted aunt.  She's pretty much awesome and puts up with shopping for four hours and trying to find clothing that fits me.  Did you know that there's such a thing as petite extra small?  I didn't think I was particularly small, but apparently I was wrong.