Progress

All students have paid in full. We purchased the 14-days JR Pass which will arrive next week.

I received email from Seishin. Mr. Korachika is finalizing the program details. The schedule and host family list will be sent within a few days.

Ms. Slattery (NDSJ's VP of Human Resource and Administration) is preparing trip permission forms.

We will a mandatory trip information night after AP testing on Monday May 17 from 7pm to 8pm.

Passport

Please check your passport. It must be valid at least 6 months beyond the day of your trip to Japan.

For passport application or renewal, please check:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html

Travel Dates Confirmed

Ms. Yoshida confirmed the dates today.

Plan changed

Due to the high fare of UA's non-stop flight this year, we decided to stay one night at Narita. This change will save us $500 per person. We will take trains from Narita to Kurashiki the next day. It sounds fun, doesn't it?

I am still waiting for Seishin to confirm the dates.I hope the dates can be set as soon as possible, so we can book the flight. We are a group of 7 people and the dates are not flexible at all, we can't book it too late.

Annoucement

In the faculty meeting on Thursday Nov. 5th (the day before the 8th grade day), Mrs. Riley asked me to briefly talk about the progress of the exchange program, so now the faculty knows that I am going to take students to Japan in June next year. After the meeting, several teachers told me it's great and very exciting.

I used Glogster, the website Mrs. Ahrens used for her 8th grade day class, to create interactive posters for the sample schedule of the exchange program. The two posters can be found on the top navigation bar of this blog. Just click "schedule" and you will be able to choose either the 13 days or the 18 days samples.

Follow up email

I sent a follow up email to sister Kotani, Ms. Mori, and Ms. Yoshida.

In the email, I told them about our open house. The Japan club displayed the full-color yearbook on the table and excitedly talked about our sister school relationship and the collaborative programs.

Homestay program info on Seishin's website

http://www.nd-seishin.ac.jp/sch_guide/sch_edu3.htm

Homestay program info on Seishin's website:

We also welcome students from St. Anthony High School (HI) and Blair High School (NB) in June. Some of our students and their parents volunteer to offer them a homestay. The students attend classes at Seishin where they learn the Japanese language, the Japanese culture and the Japanese way of thinking and living. Some of the experiences they have are tea ceremony lessons, Koto lessons, outings to famous sites in our area, visits to various temples and shrines, as well as joining in on the homeroom activities with Seishin students. The students from our school and the students from their sister schools help each other all the time, especially with communication and overcoming the language barriers. Their friendships will be stronger as they learn to communicate better in both languages. The fact of the sister school arrangement means that it is easy for the students to keep in touch with each other. We provide our students with the means to make the first steps towards cross-cultural understanding.

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From the paragraph, we know that Seishin is providing the homestay program to two other American high schools. Seishin will provide very similar program and schedule to our students.

Contact ND Seishin

An Email was sent to the principal Sister Kotani, vice principal Ms. Mori, and Ms. Yoshida. I asked a few questions.

1. Date of the trip and schedule
2. Expenses of the trip
3. Host family
4. Japanese exchange students