The End (For Now)

This is extremely belated but after five and a half years, my time in Japan is finally over.

As I was doing the Okinawa recap, I tried to think about what to do with this blog. I'm definitely not deleting it, but I highly doubt I can blog like before. So for now, I guess I'll just have to say goodbye. And I'm not good at goodbyes so this will be a fairly short post.

If I ever have something Japan-related to say (or if/when I go on a trip to Japan because I do intend to see my friends), I will definitely update this blog, but otherwise, there won't be any new posts.

Lastly (and perhaps more practically), I will be creating an additional section for the guidebook and emailing it to everyone who downloaded a copy when I'm done. It's basically going to be a guide for moving back based on my experiences.

For now, here's a to-do checklist that I made and used. I hope it helps if you're thinking of moving back:

Car
- Break insurance (fairly easy, although be careful about the day of last payment)
- Sell car (I sold it back to the guy I bought it from so that was very convenient)

Home
- Inform housing agent and pay the penalty fees.
- Hire a moving company and Pack (If you're going with Yamato Transport, like I did, then you should budget time for them to deliver the materials to you. I'm not sure how long other companies take)
- Break the internet contract (the most complicated since I had to liase with my housing agent as well)
- Stop the water
- Stop the gas
- Stop the electricity
Note: You will either need to have cash on hand or be around for a few days to make the last payment.
- Set up mail forwarding if you have an address to forward mail to.

Job & Other legal stuff
- Inform Immigration that I've left my job
- Inform prefectural government that I'm leaving and close all related accounts (insurance, pension, etc). The specific paperwork is: 『住民票の転出届』, 『国民年金の手続き』,『国民健康保険の脱退手続き』 』, and『個人番号通知カードまたは個人番号カードの返納』

Do these last
- Close your bank accounts
- Cancel your phone contract

And that's it (according to my notes). Goodbye for now and thank you for reading!

Encouragement

Tis the season to hear from Kouhai's. I've been so so happy (and flattered) that some of you new MEXT scholars have emailed me to tell me you got in! Every time I get the email, it makes my day. And since we're well into Christmas season, I thought it was time for a more reflective post.

Here's a pretty but completely unrelated painting to start. 

Recently, I got a comment from +Zahratul Amanah my Post-Exam Wrap-Up post. If you don't remember the post, basically, I was sad because my results were not as good as I wanted them to be, and I was feeling a lot of pressure about what to choose for my university.

Of course, two years down the road, you all can see that I'm absolutely happy with my choice of Kyudai, because I have awesome classes (Studio Ghibli class anyone?), good class, and loads of chances to travel. And wear pretty kimonos.

I'm not saying this to rub salt in anyone's wound, but I'm trying to encourage you guys. It might seem like a big deal, but it's really not the end of the world. Tani-sensei has said this before, that we foreign students come here thinking only of Todai. We think the only good university is Todai (and maybe Kyodai). But actually, it's this gradually sliding scale. There are loads of good universities. Hokkaido University, Kyushu University, Osaka University, Hitotsubashi University... there is more to life than Tokyo University. Plus, move out of Tokyo and your living costs go way down - that means more money for things like fun and traveling.

And remember, MEXT chose you to get the scholarship for a reason. You may not understand why, in fact, I still don't understand why I got the scholarship. Especially when it seems that everyone else are much smarter than you. But the fact is, there's something special about you that stood out. Don't you ever forget that.

So yes, study hard, don't even think about cheating and choose your university wisely. But please please please, don't stress about it too much. And if you guys ever need to talk about university applications or stress or whatever, feel free to comment/email me. I'm always here to support you guys. 一緒に頑張ろう！

Here's a pretty picture from Mount Aso - PLEASE CONSIDER KYUDAI!