Stu's Japan Blog 2010

Welcome to the new look 'Stu's Japan Blog', previously known by the equally imaginative title 'My Japanese Adventure'.

In my last post, on September 25th 2007, I was standing at an internet booth in Kuala Lumpur Airport on my way back from a five month stint in Tokyo. Upon my return I immediately set about applying for Japanese at university. In order to acheive this, as a mature student with poor A-Levels, I was required to spend a year taking an "Access Course", during which I received all the guidance needed to apply for uni, while studying a variety of random modules in order to bump up my UCAS points.

I applied for 'Linguistics and Japanese' at five UK institutions, and got rejected by four of them. The one uni who decided to give me the benefit of the doubt was, Newcastle University, and that is where I am now. Currently in my second year out of four, I get to spend my third in Japan, and have just been told where I will be posted.

Akita International University, in the northern part of Honshu. It wasn't my first choice, or second or third. In fact it's the complete opposite end of the country from where I was hoping to go, but my initial disappointment has waned and I'm now kind of looking forward to it. So much so that I've decided to ressurect my old blog.

stujapan.blogspot.com has been given a bit of a makeover since KUL'07, thanks to my discovery of some sexy Blogger Templates and I'm looking forward to getting back into posting about Part II of 'My Japanese Adventure'.

The application process is just getting underway, and I have a doctor's appointment, a visa and a serious financial headache to sort out, so there'll be plenty for me to write about in the months leading up to departure. Where possible, I'm planning to try and write at least some of my posts in both English and Japanese, for the benefit of my Japanese friends as well as for my own practice. So if you're at all interested, bookmark this site, or hit the RSS link at the top there, and feel free to leave a comment.

-Stu