Sunday, December 13, 2009

New Year, New Life

God, I am sooooo bad at updating this thing---!!!!

Before coming to Japan, I had this image in my mind of coming home from school/etc and writing in my blog about all my adventures every day-- but the reality is SO different. To start, my homestay is not what I thought it would be...

My host parents are really helpful and nice, but we really have nothing in common and talking to them can get awkward :(  Plus, my house doesn't have a living room or a TV or anything, so the only common space I can go to spend quality time with them is at the kitchen table (where I sit and talk to my host mom while we drink tea).

Also, as I mentioned in the "giant arrival post of doom," my commute is about an hour and 10 minutes.... which for someone as absolutely horrible at waking up in the morning as me, is like...... suicide for morning classes. I've gotta wake up at 6 to make it on time, but usually I sleep through my alarm or it just shuts off, or whatever, and I'm late fore class or end up just losing all motivation to go and skip it. SOOOO BAD!

I have a feeling my grades in my Japanese class are gonna be really terrible this semester... it's really upsetting. Not only am I late all the time, but because I don't have much time to study, I've been doing quite terribly on a lot of my quizzes :(  By the time I get home from school, there's usually little or no time before I have to eat dinner, then take a shower, then maybe talk to my host mom for a bit so I don't seem like I'm ignoring her, and..... it's already like 10pm! At which point I'm already getting tired so I have no energy to study or do homework -__-

...

As a result of all this stress, ect.....



Comes the reason for naming this blog post, "New Year, New Life" ...............



I decided to move out of my homestay and try living elsewhere ^___^



After a few weeks of looking for places that catered to foreigners, going to check them out, and doing a lot of consulting with friends and parents and of course, Kazaoka-sensei, our resident advisor, I finally found the perfect place!

Aaaaaaaaand.....



It's located in one of my favorite places in Tokyo-- one that even before coming here, I knew about and was dying to go to............



HARAJUKU~~~~~

Youth fashion/culture center of Tokyo, and maybe... top 3 in the world XD
(if you don't know anything about it, click HERE right now!!)



At this point, I think moving out will be the best thing for me.  My time in Tokyo is short, and I want to make the most out of this experience-- without being held back by obligations or long commutes. It'll be more expensive, that I know for sure, but it's worth it. The house I'll be moving into is great, there are 6 other foreigners living there but it's really clean, and of course, location location location!!! The station I use to get to school, Takadanobaba, is only a 9 minute train away from Harajuku(with about a 7 minute walk to get to the train from the house). So my commute will be cut in half. More than half, actually! Which means more study time, more sleep, and more fun, which all leads to better grades, less stress, and overall a better time for the remaining 8 months in Tokyo ^____^

I'll talk more about it when I actually move in, as well as post lots of pictures!! But for now, I have a huge project that is waiting to be worked on and it's going on 11:30 :(  I just felt like... such a big decision merited a little blog update at the very least.

Thanks everyone for your advice and support! I <3 you!
.... And we'll definitely need to celebrate when I move out~~ housewarming party ^^


:)

2 comments:

Ko December 13, 2009 at 11:52 PM  

Keep me updated if anyone moves out while you're there okay? I'm still looking.

Alicia December 14, 2009 at 12:11 AM  

For sure ;)