JASC: The
Japan-America Student ConferenceJASC: The
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Page Pre-departure Hawaii Kyoto pt.1 Hiroshima/Miyajima Kyoto pt.2 Sapporo Tokyo The Journey Home |
How does this story begin you may
ask? Well I'm going to use this section of the site to tell my story. I started my sophomore year at Sacred Heart University with a new attitude towards school. The previous year didn't go as I had planned, and I was looking at other schools to transfer to. While registering for classes the previous semester, I noticed that the school was offering Japanese. I had wanted to take Japanese for quite some time after being introduced to anime some time in middle school during my days of playing RPG's with some friends in Bethel. But I digress. So where was I? Oh yeah, Japanese. Back at SHU I was a chemistry major and I had every intention of earning a BS from there, but as my freshman year went by I learned that SHU wasn't the place for me. So my search for a new school began as the school year started. I was also commuting that year because I was less than satisfied with on-campus housing there. I was surprised to find out that commuting wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I also met more people this way than I had while I was living in the freshmen dorms. So I was taking the normal chem. major classes: organic, lab, calculus, etc., but I was also taking Elementary Japanese. This quickly became my favorite class. I couldn't help but enjoy learning it (quite a change from the days of high school when I dreaded going to French class). The class was fun and our teacher was great. I think that everybody in the class (the 10 of us that registered) had a good time. While I didn't have any real difficulties with any classes that year, I did extremely well in Japanese (I think that it just interested me more). This also helped to narrow my searches for new schools down. Anyway, it may have been at the end of the fall semester, or the beginning of the spring semester when my teacher, Naito Sensei, passed around an application for a student conference that would be going to Japan. This was the JASC application, which I was more that willing to apply for. So I filled out the application, got the recommendations that I needed, and sent it on in. Sometime during the spring semester (close to the end I think) I received news that I had been selected as an alternate. I wasn't extremely pleased, nor was I disappointed. My mother kept telling me not to lose hope and that something might happen. Something obviously did, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this. It seemed that only a few days later I got a call from the Chairman of the 51st JASC, and I was asked if I wanted to be a part of the conference. The only thought that went through my mind was to say yes. After a brief chat with Krin (the Chairman) I hung up the phone and literally jumped for joy. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep that night. The next day I happened to have my Japanese class and the first thing I did was to tell my teacher that I was going to Japan. There were quite a few things to do before leaving in July, and passing all of my classes was the most important. Continue on to the next part Pre-departure |