The Red Suitcase of Destiny

Got my suitcase yesterday. So all this:

So cosy! It's my home, but I guess it isn't actually anymore. #LetItGo

is going into this:

Turtles still in the window. Will miss them too.

Time to give up the materialistic lifestyle, I guess. One person, one suitcase, possibly more than one banana. At least the case is quite big.

Vis-à-vis a visa ce'est la visa synger på samme gamle VISA

As the first episode of "Han-Silly does things for which she feels woefully inadequate and underqualified" (I believe it will be the first of many), I am now writing emails to embassies*. Specifically, the Japanese embassy in South Korea.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am a Norwegian citizen, and I'm going to be attending the University of Tokyo as an exchange student for the 2014 summer term. Before I start there, I will be doing a seven week language course. Unfortunatelly, I have realized that my Certificate of Eligibility will not be ready by the time I leave Norway, so for the language course I will enter Japan under the short-term visa exemption arrangement. I will then have to apply for my College Student visa after my initial arrival. I am wondering if I could do so from your embassy. If so, would I need to plan for more than a one-day trip to Korea? Would you need any documents other than the following: 

• Passport
• One visa application form 
• One photograph 
• Certificate of Eligibility - the original and one copy

Thank you for your help. 

Sincerely,
Hanne Siri Amdahl Heglum

Whoppa Gangnam Style!

*I actually corrected** a very large ammount of embassy emails during a particularly gruesome part of my position as official language nazi for ISFiT, but they did not really concern me personally, and I had absolutely nothing to do with their contents, so it is so totally not the same thing.
**re-wrote***
***wrote, kinda****
****I'm arrogant sometimes, okay?

In the process of GTFO

Started packing up some of my shit today, and I'm realizing that, since I'm trying to distribute the weight at least a little bit, there won't be a single box without a thick lining of books at the bottom. How I ever fit half the Library of goddamn Alexandria into my one room apartment I will never know.

The turtles on the windowsill are confused. I don't think
they've realized that I'm leaving them.

2014...

...is going to be a bit different for me. It will involve a seven week stay in Fukuoka studying the incomprehensible weirdness that is the Japanese language, and a summer term at the University of Tokyo, which I really hope won't kill me. I do have some plans for after that as well, but those won't be ready until late March at the earliest and might very realistically end in debilitating failure, so I won't dwell so much on them yet.

This blog is primarily going to be my open letters to home, written to inform and amuse my friends and family about my commings and goings on the other side of the world, so I won't have to tell them all in person (because actual real conversation is so boring and tedious and also I'm a bit of an attention whore so there you go).

I have done a bit of work for the Recruitment and Admissions office at my home university, and have seen some interest in exchange student blogging. For that reason, I might also include some info about the formalities and procedures of getting yo'ass abroad.

"Why write in English? What have you against your Mother Tongue you traitorous rampallian?" - Because English is the language of the internets, and I want to include as many lovely people as I can. Also, I find it easier to be funnier when a bit further removed from home. Norwegian feels so close and personal, you know ^^;

So that's it. New year, lot's of new shit going down => new bloggy thing. Hello World!

For the record: I have no idea what I'm doing.