Dear Natalie and Gregory

Hey guys, so incredibly I think I can use my United frequent flyer miles for my ticket. Right now I am looking at a nonstop flight (United 803, returning flight 804) from Dulles to Narita leaving March 25th (arriving 26th) and coming home July 31st. How does that sound to you guys? I know Greg wants to take ANA, but I'm definitely leaning towards this since I have the miles for it, why not? However, I don't know what the normal cost of this ticket is, so I don't know if it's within reason for you. But another bonus is, there are tons of seats open right now, including bunches next to each other (they have our names on them I swear)

Okay, I am going to look up the price of this flight normally.

Oh, crap. So prices for this and others like this are around $1921 and up. Which is pricey. Yikes.

So....I can't say that I will be booking with you guys, if you're looking for something else, because I know this is a lot to pay, but it works out best for me to use my miles since I've been saving them up for forever.

Wait, but that was on the United site, let me check student ticket cost...

Okay, student price is $1217...which may actually be comparable to ANA or something. So not as bad, but also not the $875 and $966 prices I've found for these dates as well (flying Northwest mainly though).

So alright, let me know what you guys think. Thanks for sticking through my whole thought/search process here haha. I'm still willing to work with you all because it'd be awesome to all travel together, but now my preference is United. But I guess my travel dates are also more flexible now since it probably won't make a huge price difference for me.

FedEx package arrived!

(see title) I got me my Sophia infoooo! And boy, is there a bunch of stuff to go over...but this is exciting!

Natalie and Greg, shall we get on with the ticket-purchasing process? I don't know about GREG (ahem) but I'm going for inexpensive...

Do we set up another chat date or what? Cuz um...SOMEONE pooped out on it last time...

Link It

http://gregintokyo.blogspot.com


Hopefully the title is adequate, unlike the URL (but I had to make it easy for my folks to remember!)

Make that one of three

Hey all:

Like Natalie and Greg, I too have been working, reading, watching a lot of T.V. and not studying. I've read a couple of great books that I completely reccomed: Boomsday, Out Stealing Horses and Mysterious Skin. Top notch, all of them. When I'm not reading or sleeping I'm working. I work at this retail store called Charlotte Russe. It's pretty snazzy, my coworkers are cool if sometimes lazy and I get a 40% discount. I was going to get a second job working for this funeral parlor and the D.C./metro police to "remove" bodies, you know, to sort of put it on my resume as an example of someone who's not afraid to try new things or get her hands dirty. But, after watching a ton of Paranormal State on A&E, I decided against that. No need to bring the ghost of some murder victim home with me. Completely unnecessary.

Not much else to report. I do have a question though. What's the weather going to be like when we get to Japan? What kind of clothes should I pack, that is, spring clothes, or winter clothes or all summer wear? Will it really be the rainy season? Do I need Wellies? Plus, DK house: I don't know if you guys have looked at the pictures but there are conspicuously no beds in those pictures. Are we going to have fold out beds that you take out and put away? Thoughts?

And I did want to answer Jen's question about the blog project. You can definitely start your blogs now if you'd like, but a week or two before we leave is probably better since you'd have more to say about packing and such. As far as content goes, if you could focus on the process at first, the nitty gritty things that are tedious but need to get done (i.e. booking flights, packing, etc.) that would be good. Really, the blog should be a space where you can discuss any worries you have about the study abroad trip before we leave, problems you encounter when you get there and then awesome things you experience once there.

Hope everyone is enjoying their extended vay-kay.

I guess I'll make Natalie's bandwagon one of two

     I decided I've give a little update on my life since last time I posted... sooo here goes:


     Mostly, I've been trying to earn money. I work about 6/7 days a week, substitute teaching on the weekdays and cashiering at Farm Fresh on the weekends. Recently, this schedule has deviated a bit due to me going up to Charlottesville Tuesday-Thursday two weeks ago, and for three weeks starting this week. And well, I guess it hasn't deviated too much as I have been picking up UTS blocks while I'm there, but really, that just pays for the gas to get there and the food that I have to buy if no one swipes me in. Still, I'm subbing Mondays and Fridays and am doing the Farm Fresh thing on weekends.


     Substituting can be really fun. Take for example, today, where two out of my three classes for the day had to act out a pretty hilarious play from their lit book, and where I just finished Dance, Dance, Dance some 3-4 months after we were supposed to for the JPTR Modern Cannon class. Also, you too can have mentally-handicapped middle school girls give you love notes (I'll tell anyone that story who wants to hear it in person).

     
Cashiering can also be really fun. I think I've said that I'm the fastest cashier at Farm Fresh before, but I'll reiterate that last week I was the fastest out of all the Farm Freshes worldwide. Granted, they only exist in Virginia and northern NC, but whatever. Worldwide is worldwide, baby!

     
Otherwise I've just been chilling, playing Rock Band and watching Arrested Development... and Lost. And American Gladiators (SOOO funny). And Terminator, and American Idol, and House.........

     
And finally, I'm going to Seven Springs Ski Resort in Pennsylvania to snowboard with my Boy Scout troop this weekend! It should be awesome as long as my body remembers how to snowboard after two years of not doing it. But, I figure I'll be alright.

     
I haven't been studying.

     
Now let's hear from the rest of you guys, yeah...?

Here it is!

I said I'd do it and I'm doing it, darnit. I thought about just editing the old post, but I decided it'd be funnier to keep that one on there XD


So first I'll update y'all on what I've been up to as of late. I can't remember who all I mentioned the guarantor situation to, but I found one! So I don't have to pay Sophia a $5,000 just-in-case-something-bad-happens-to-me deposit! Cool! Over the past 3 weeks I've been working at the office for the mine where my dad works. They like to do big, over-the-top stuff for their employees, so I made all the Easter baskets, which go to all the employees' kids age 12 and under. But these aren't your normal Easter baskets, folks. This is.. Santa hijacked Easter and decided every kid needed $40-$50 dollars worth of toys for Easter...... wait, what? It was a little ridiculous and a lot excessive. Especially the part where I had to go buy the second round of toys (Did I mention there are 125 kids? 3 and a half shopping carts worth of stuff into my tiny '88 Mustang... by myself.. shopping blows).

Then I made some bags of Valentine's Day candy for the miners, and now I'm working on these really silly cards to go on the Easter baskets. You see, the ladies at the office are all really into stamping, like, using rubber stamp kits and paper and markers and pencils all from this one company to make cutesy cards and things. So I'm making 125 cutesy cards with little baby chickens on the front and blah blah blah it's dumb. But it beats flipping burgers! And it's sort of artsy craftsy and I like that sort of thing. I'm just not a fan of excess, extravagance, wastefulness, throwing money and time and craft paper around, etc.

Here, watch this video to break up this post a little bit, cause it's getting long. It's weird but talented pop/rock/former visual kei sensation, Miyavi, singing "Hit the Road Jack!" Check out some of his other videos for some guitar slapping coolness, and more Engrish covers!


Blogging will now recommence..

I've also been listening to some Japanesepod101.com podcasts on the way to and from work lately! They're really good and I highly recommend them! We super need to start studying and reviewing so we don't get put in the dumb class.. Which brings me to my next topic/first question: Did anyone else get an email from Sophia a few weeks ago with a survey about your Japanese experience, and asking if you wanted to take the regular classes or the intensive classes? I'm thinking of taking the intensive classes.. They're two 90-minute sessions a day, 5 days a week, but it's for 8 credits. And I need at least 12 credits for my financial aid to be valid, so I'd have to spend those credits somewhere! Anybody else get that email?

To Greg and Jen: We all need to make our flights for serious I think.. Let's have one of those webmeetings and definitely get this all sorted out, when we're leaving, if we're flying together or not, etc etc etc and buy these puppies! I was thinking, as far as getting there early, when you guys get your DK House housing materials or whatever Chris said you'd get, you might wanna see about contacting the DK and asking about arriving early. When I signed up I just put that I'd be there on the 25th and they were like, ok cool. I'm assuming if/when I stay later than July 25th but leave before August 25th (the next full month), they would have some sort of alternative payment process maybe so you don't have to pay a full month for a few days? That's what my mom thought maybe... I better email them.

Is that all I had to say in this blog? Really? Hmm.. I think we should all blog more often again, yes, that would be good. I still check the blog like 3 times a day, so the only thing that's really changed is frequency of posts, mine included mos def. Oh yeah, Jen I was gonna ask you to persuade Andreano-san to make a guest blog post here on our blog, maybe closer to time to start packing and leaving, with like.... a list of all the things he thinks we might like to know before we go to Sophia, or things to bring/not to bring, and then we can all annoyingly post comments asking things like "Does Sophia have a cafeteria? Is it any good? Like.. Newcomb good or O'Hill good? Ok but like.. on a Monday, or more like Thursday where they start putting a chicken patty on top of a bowl of pasta and giving it a foreign sounding name?" I think this is a great idea, and I'm suggesting it here.

I was going to sew a whole bunch of cute new summer clothes to take to Japan but...alas.. I've only gotten through about a fourth of a purse and gotten totally unmotivated! Work needs to.. not make a person feel totally drained for the rest of their free evening! On an ending note, let's all watch America's Best Dance Crew tomorrow night, because I like those kinds of shows and they're great, and who knows. Maybe we'll all fall on hard times someday, abandon our college educations, take to the streets and start our own Dance Crew. And then win that show. Somebody come up with a kickin' name for our crew.

This blog is too long now! I'd put some pics in but I'm feeling preettty lazy. Maybe another day. Goooooodnight!

Wait for it..

I am so blogging tonight.