My name is Ruth, I'm a student of Japanese in Leeds University in the UK. I'm from Liverpool and I've lived there my whole life. I went to a girl's school in Liverpool to study my GCSEs and then for sixth form I went to a grammar school for my A levels in French, Spanish, General Studies and English Literature.
I live with my mum, my dad lives not very far away with my sister. My boyfriend also lives with me, his name is Alex and we've been together for coming up to five years now.
In September 2009 I went to Leeds to study French and Japanese together. It all got a bit too much for me after 3 months, so I took a year out. I worked in the restaurant Wagamama for 9 months to save up some money and learn a bit of life experience, and then returned in September 2010 to take single honours Japanese.
This year I've been studying Minna No Nihongo (みんなの日本語) books 1 and 2, should know approximately 500 kanji and all the different grammar points in those two books. I definately don't know all that much, but that's just a base line of what I have been studying this year.
My first year hasn't been all that easy. I struggle with depression and anxiety problems that have kept me out of a lot of classes, so I missed a lot of tests, and a lot of information that was super important for my end of year exams. Although I studied as hard as I could and always tried my best, things did get difficult. In the end, my Japanese result for semester 2 was a fail and I had to resit it on the 1st of August. Yesterday I found out that I passed that exam, and have a definite go ahead to go to Japan in my second year for a year abroad.
So... from September 2011 until August 2012 I will be in Fukuoka, Japan on a study abroad program at Fukuoka University (福岡大学) with two other people from my university, Ash and Sophie.
I've been blogging online since 2003 on livejournal, but I like to keep that more private so I thought I would make this blog for a more open account of my year abroad experience. I guess it can be a way for my friends and family etc. to keep updated on my life when I'm away, as well as maybe being useful for future students who want to know what it's like.
I know my year abroad won't be easy. I've never been away alone for a long time before, I've never been anywhere on holiday outside of Europe, and my Japanese is still a little wobbly. Although my depression and anxiety problems are better than they were earlier this year, I can never predict exactly how I will feel very far in advance, so I hope to be pretty honest about what it's like to spend a whole year away from home when you have to deal with these problems. I know I won't be the only student that goes through this, so I think it'll be pretty good to put out an honest report of how I deal and struggle with it.
Anyway, I hope this wasn't too boring. I'll definately post more fun stuff as well as serious boring things!
In the next few weeks, here are the things I have to do to sort out my year abroad:
And that's it for now! Thanks for reading. x
- Receive my certificate of eligibility from the university, send it off with my visa application, then go to London to pick up my visa.
- Sort out a bank account that will allow me to change money from GBP into yen without nasty mega charges.
- Get ready all the stuff I need to take to japan with me (shopping trip!), and sort out how to pack it.
- Test out the meds the doctor gave me to take on the plane (cus I really, really hate planes!)
- Keep on being positive and looking after myself so I'm best prepared to go away.
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