The first post!

First a little about myself. I am a first year student in Japanese and Business in the UK. I think part of the reason why I want to write this blog is because I get a lot of questions about what its like being a student of Japanese from people wanting to study Japanese. I thought documenting it on a regular basis like this would prove useful and hopefully interesting to someone somewhere! In addition, I will probably write about my interests and ramblings as well, so hopefully I will end up with a nice mix of fun randomness and useful information :)

I dabble (but not exclusively) in anime, manga, cosplay, american comics, lolita fashion, kitsuke and kimono, painting and drawing. I expect this blog will also include my making my first cosplay over this summer, and the disasters that will undoubtedly occur!

So, my journey so far as a student of Japanese. I can't actually really remember when I first became interested in Japan in general, but I was fortunate enough to go to a upper school which had Japanese as a GCSE and A-level option as well as a very active exchange programme. I took the GCSE and in 2008 went on a two week home stay exchange programme, I knew then that I would never be fully satisfied with my life if I didn't try to go live in Japan. I may never reach that goal, but I knew that I had to try. So then I did my A-levels. I only did Japanese up to AS before University though, as I wasn't allocated enough timetable space to do the full A level. I ended up having to go through clearing on the notorious tuition fee rise year, got a place to do Business as well as Japanese and thats where I am now.

To sign off, my first piece of useful advice! Doing a dual honours or subsidiary degree will be more useful in the long run! Its really, REALLY hard work, but you won't end up having to do loads of extra stuff for your CV to prove you have skills in something other than just the language. There are plenty of bilingual Japanese-English people out there, you need extra skills that they won't necessarily have. Also just because I am doing a business degree doesn't necessarily mean I'll end up in a business job, because the skills are transferable.

じゃまたね！！ナル姫
Bye for now! Naru Hime xx