Pre-Departure,

Pre-Departure,

I have not left yet and it is still pretty sureal, I have been working in the Bookstore on campus all this week and I see all my friends attending classes and buying their books. I, however, don’t leave for Japan until Tuesday the 7th of September. It is a shock that it is actually happening, next week I am getting on a plane to Japan. I have never been out of the U.S. and I have have never really been away from the area of Montana and Idaho. I am scared and excited all at the same time. I don’t feel prepared enough somehow. As I have not left yet I don’t really have any foreign adventures to write about, but I’ll tell you a little bit about my self.

I am a very active person I love doing martial arts, mainly taekwondo but I love them all. I do Bikram yoga from time to time, yoga in a humid 105 degree room. I love to be outside hiking, camping, and pretty much anything else.

Here is me in the blue at a Taekwondo tournament in Bozeman last spring.

Here is my hike through the bridger foothills trail between the “M” and fairy lake.

I have always been fascinated by asia and just foreign countries and their customs in general. As I have already stated I have not traveled very much and I really wanted to see a new part of the world and to learn a new language. This last fall I started to pursue this yearning by taking japanese and applying to study abroad in Japan, and here I am less than a week away from leaving. I am going to spend about 11 months in Japan Studying Japanese Language and culture at Kumamoto Gakuen University in Kumamoto Japan.

I am very excited to go see and learn new things, and to meet new and interesting people. I will post again after I have arrived in Japan.

-Trevor Clark