Hi!

Hey there! My name is Sophia and in a little over a month I will be starting my year long study abroad journey in Japan!!! I thought I would make a first post to talk a little bit about myself and my plans and goals for this upcoming year :)

How it all started

I am headed into my third year of college as a Japanese major. How did that all start? Honestly, I never really ever though that I would major in a language when I was a kid, it was all about being an author or an Egyptologist (at age 7 I firmly believed that someday I would be gallivanting across the sands in search of Pharaohs). It was actually a random conversation with my principal that set me on the path that I'm now on. My best friend and I mentioned that we would love to go to Japan someday, purely because we were interested in Japanese video games and shows. It was more of a novel idea than a passion at that time. My principal pointed out that we could always do an exchange program and, thinking it would never actually happen, subtly said something about it to my parents. A year later, I was off on a summer exchange program to Japan at age 16!

It was an experience that changed my life! I feel in love with the language and culture and knew that I wanted Japan to be a part of my life forever. So, I decided to major in Japanese and dive right into learning everything I could about Japan's language, culture, and history.

College

I've spent the past two years studying Japanese and having an absolute blast! Every course I have taken has made me love what I'm doing all the more!

Now I am finally about to go back to Japan for a whole year! I can't wait to start my adventure :)