Bad News Baseball

So, several things went wrong recently, well, not all were bad, but lots of changes. First, I received an e-mail from Nanzan Daigaku saying that my original host family, the Matsuda's, had to be changed to the Funahashi family. It wasn't explained why in the e-mail, but I learned who my new new family will be:

Father: FUNAHASHI, Jun (45)
Mother: FUNAHASHI, Mayumi (45) →hobby(テニス・いけばな・読書)
Grand father FUNAHASHI, Yoshiharu (70) →hobby(時刻表を見ること)
Sister: FUNAHASHI, Miku (8) →hobby(空手・ピアノ・工作・テニス)
Brother: FUNAHASHI, Junpei (13) →hobby(空手・ゲーム・読書)

It is almost guaranteed that I will be playing video games with Junpei, so that's pretty cool! Besides the family change, it turns out that the Japanese Consulate likes to close for almost a week for New Year celebrations. Of course, this caused me to not be able to turn in my visa application, meaning I have to wait till tomorrow to do it. This means that I cannot take my original flight, leaving on Friday, so I have to push it back to Sunday. Amanda from IES was extremely helpful with the situation and told me that the staff at Nanzan Daigaku are aware that I will be arriving late, and they will help me with orientation.

Other than that, I had a really nice dinner at People Chicago with my family on the 30th. It was delicious!

New Year's eve was great fun as well. I met Kristin at her apartment where we watched a crazy Korean psychological horror film (A Tale of Two Sisters). We went to Jameson's apartment where several bands were set up to play. We watched about 1 and a half sets and left to see Leonard spin at People. People was completely packed, but it was so much fun. Kristin knows pretty much everybody in Chicago, and just happens to have 3 friends that work at People. One of them gave us 4 wristbands that equalled $400 so we could get any drink we wanted for free. That was amazing. Kala and her gang eventually showed up which was great. I'm glad she was able to go. She was also beyond helpful when Kristin started getting "sick"... After an hour of crazy alley puking, Kristin made it home with Christian by taxi, Kala and her friends left due to the closing of People, and I was sort of stuck with no way to get home. I decided to run home, cause I was cold, and couldn't sit and wait for a taxi, not to mention that there weren't any available anywhere. I made it to Kristin's apartment in like 10 minutes though. All in all, that was probably the best New Year celebration I have had yet.

Now all that is left is the visa, and preparing for departure. I haven't even started packing, but I usually wait till the night before anyway. Wish me luck!