With less than one month away from my arrival in Japan, I\u2019m feeling both nervous and excited. I\u2019ve never been out of the country before; in fact, I\u2019ve barely been out of the state! I\u2019ve also never lived alone, which makes this journey both an exhilarating one and a frightening one.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been looking forward to this moment for years and it hardly feels real. It seemed like such a distant and unattainable dream that I don\u2019t even feel like I\u2019m really going to Japan at all. I imagine it won\u2019t truly hit me until I\u2019ve already been there for a while.<\/p>\n
Although I used to dream about this trip as something that I\u2019d experience passively as nothing more than a wandering eye, I read the blog posts of other study abroad students at Kansai Gaidai and found myself looking forward to taking an active, engaged role in my time there to really learn about the culture firsthand. I\u2019ve always been rather shy and kept within my own personal shell, but it was amazing to see what other people had learned while they were there just by striking up conversations and exploring. I came to realize that I want something more out of this experience. I don\u2019t just want to see the pretty sights and practice my Japanese nervously with only one speaking partner. I want to explore the country, meet and learn from new people, attend festivals and ceremonies, learn about traditions, and more.<\/p>\n
Although it\u2019s scary, I think this is a wonderful opportunity and I\u2019m so happy to have it. I want to make the most of it. I want to come back from Japan with great memories, new experiences, and incredible knowledge. These are the things that help us open our minds and find greater enjoyment in the world, and I\u2019m going to do just that.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t wait to be there! I\u2019m going to take so many pictures and enjoy every minute of this journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With less than one month away from my arrival in Japan, I\u2019m feeling both nervous and excited. I\u2019ve never been out of the country before; in fact, I\u2019ve barely been out of the state! I\u2019ve also never lived alone, which makes this journey both an exhilarating one and a frightening one. I\u2019ve been looking forward…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kansai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16373,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5203\/revisions\/16373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}