yesterday i got the news that i've been accepted as an exchange student to "miyagi university of education" (宮城教育大学, shortened, i think, to 宮教?) in sendai, for a year, starting in autumn. well, not 100% accepted, the japanese school can still refuse me but it's veeery unlikely. the first debriefing is next friday.

so now i have to prepare my ass off — cleaning and tossing everything, getting Official Papers (medical prescriptions that'll need to be transferred to japan somehow), going to the dentist, getting new glasses (normal + reading... gonna cost like $1,000 USD, owch), i'll probably want to have 1 decent set of clothes and buy the rest there, etc, and then i'll just have to STUDY JAPANESE. my wife's sisters are FINALLY, after 4 months of being here, going to their own place now so studying should be a lot easier.

now i spent $20 USD on ebay buying some useful-seeming things that may improve my life. i figure i'd better buy and test them out now rather than constantly order stuff when i'm in japan. i got:



"ear holders", my new prescription sunglasses keep falling off my face so i'll try these.




glow in the dark headphones & USB charger for my phone, i've realized that having all your cables be black in a house with bad lighting/when they end up in a huge tangle together is NOT a good idea. i've also no idea how annoying wall sockets will be in japan so a USB charger is a good safety measure.

a "finger protector" for when cutting food. dunno if this'll just make things more annoying or not but i'm always worried about cutting myself (partially since i see so badly but partially because my sister actually DID cut the tip of her finger off when cooking when i was like 7 years old)

a watch with a BLACK face and LARGE numbers. or at least, i hope they'll be fairly large, i can't tell the real size of the watch but it only cost like $3 USD so eh. normally i just use my phone/comp but last time i took a test in an actual classroom i failed just because i couldn't read the wall clock to tell if i was running out of time or not...

a "book finger". supposedly holds stubborn book pages open, we'll see how well it works. i really need this because the other hand's gonna be holding some kind of magnifying glass : /

a reusable lint roller. you just wash it off and it gets sticky again. i really don't like buying those disposable ones so i'll try this one... and i shouldn't go around looking like a hobo in japan...

other than that, i also bought a magnifying sheet that can be used with anything that has a headphone jack, so it works on my phone and 3DS. it already arrived and the product photos aren't so good so i'll take real ones and update this post later.

anddd i want to buy a 360° camera (a good, small one i've seen videos with costs like $200) and tripod so i can make super cool videos while there... $200 is a lot but at the same time, just one freaking pair of glasses cost $500 and i can very theoretically make ad revenue from youtube...