| New Star |
| Welcome
to my site. I have many hopes and goals for this site, but for the
moment it will be used primarily to host images taken from my year of
study in Japan. I'm often asked why I am in Japan, so I think I'd better explain it here. My love of Japan goes back 14 years to when I was only 5 years old. I was lucky enough to see a Japanese children's film called 'Castle in the Sky'. As soon as I found out that this film had come from Japan, a country that, like most 5 year olds in the UK, I knew nothing about, I started reading up on it, and taking in any information I could get my hands on. I found it fascinating, and decided from a very early age that I would go to Japan. As I began secondary school I soon came to realise that I had a knack for learning languages, and by the time I was 18 I had A levels in French and German and a GCSE in Spanish, all high grades. I was lucky enough to be accepted by the University of Durham to study German and Japanese, and I begun studying in Durham in October 2002. My first year at Durham was the best year of my life. The friends I made will no doubt be my friends for the rest of my life, and the knowledge I gained has created the foundations from which I plan to build my future. I passed the first year with a 2/II grade, and begun preparing for the second year of my studies, which would take place at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. I arrived in Japan on September 14th 2003. My dream of 14 years had finally come true. I made a diary for the first couple of weeks of being in Japan mainly to keep me occupied, as I had very little to do in the time before University started. The diary is available to read on this site, as well as photographs that I've taken here. I plan to update the site every Saturday. The site is mainly designed for family and friends, but if you've stumbled accross this site one way or another, please do take a look around, and if you have any questions about Japan or the language, do not hesitate to ask. |
