Hello all!

So I've been in Japan for about 3 weeks now... the first four days were spent in Tokyo for orientation with the other Fulbrighters, getting the nuts and bolts of how our year should go. It was weird being back in Tokyo, but I was glad to see that my Japanese started coming back to me and I still knew my way around the city.

I got to Kyoto last Saturday. My temporary host family was really nice and took me around the city a little bit - I saw the place where Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji, went shopping, stopped by Lake Biwa, had some decent italian food, and enjoyed some really good Japanese food my host mother prepared. I somehow did not speak a word of English for four straight days. While I recognize the value in this, by the end of it, I definitely needed a break from the brain overload of the Japanese marathon.

Since last Tuesday I've been stayed in a hotel about 10 minutes walk from the school I'll be affiliated with for the year. This is where the homesickness came in a bit. While I am an only child and really like my own space, I like it when I choose to have it. In other words, when you force me to be by myself, I get lonely. sigh. The loneliness should subside soon since I start language classes next Monday and there are about 25 Americans in the program. For 3 hours a day, 5 days a week it will be a whole lot of Japanese. Here's hoping I make some big leaps in my language proficiency.

As far as my project goes, I think I am going to spend my first semester here focusing on improving my language skills. Next semester I will do the majority of my research. After speaking with my advisor at the college here, I think I'm going to explore how internet is changing newspapers here... and compare it to the situation in the US. It's a bit of an extension of the stuff I did at the Times. I'll also explore how this fits into the overall Japanese mobile industry (what my original Fulbright proposal was based on). Hopefully I'll interview students at my school, visit the newspapers, and hopefully meet with some ad agencies if I can get it all to work out. My advisor is still trying to see if I can take classes at the business school.

I move into my apartment on Wednesday or Thursday. A TA from the American Studies Grad School got assigned to help me find an apartment. Poor thing. I looked at 5 apartments before deciding on the last one. It's about the size of my room in Norris last year. So if I think of it as living in a dorm with a tiny tiny kitchen and a washer/dryer added on, it's not so bad. I'll still have room if anyone decides to pay me a visit! I hear getting internet connected in homes here takes nearly 2 months, sadly.

I got to hang out with Regan (we went to Oxy, played in band, and were on the same abroad program junior year) over the weekend which was a lot of fun. We caught up, hung out in Kyoto, ate some pizza and played some games in an arcade. I might be going to Hiroshima with her and some other JETs next weekend.

Alright, that's it for now. I'll work on updating more frequently. Once I get my camera charger sent up from home, I'll be sure to post pictures.

Oh, and should you desire to bless my mailbox with something, I promise I'll send you something back. Here's my address:

Hailey Crowel
Detom-1 Karasuma Ichijo #301
581 Kodo-cho, Ogawa-dori Ichijo Agaru
Kamigyo-ku, 602-0943
Kyoto, Japan

Miss all of you lots. Shoot me an email or something. :)