Mitchell's Japan Exchange Fund

My name is Mitchell. (I'm the boy on the right) I've been teaching myself Japanese for a little more than 4 years, and I've recently been taking a serious look at study abroad programs. I've been interested in going to Japan for a long time, but hadn't seriously thought about it until I realized "Oh crap, I'm graduating high school in two years! I want to go to Japan before then." Turns out, Japan doesn't take homeschoolers for foreign exchange. That was disappointing, but I found Labo, which has a 4-week homestay program. I've decided to go through them for an experience in Japan. What I've done to help this become a reality is working all last summer with overtime for all but a few weeks.

One of the first things that got me started on wanting to go to Japan was anime. Big suprise, right? Well, anime was what got me into teaching myself Japanese. It was actually harder to find Enlish dubs of anime than subbed, so I decided to learn Japanese to be able to watch anime without subtitles. Well, I'm not at the level of being able to watch without subtitles, but I did go on a mission trip to New York last year and my dad got a Japanese newspaper. I was surprised at how much of it I could read! I haven't been doing as much Japanese as I should have lately (700+ on Clozemaster for those that know what it is), but I will do it before I leave for Japan. If you can't tell by the picture, I'm in karate. Going to Japan would allow me to see how the Japanese train and what I could learn from them.

All of the money here will be put towards the program cost, airfare, and any expenses in Japan. Any money that I don't use will be put towards future education. The program fee is due May 30th, 2017, and I'll be leaving on July 13th, 2017.

I've never been out of the country before, so I'm both excited and nervous. It would mean so much to me even if it's just $5 you can/are willing to donate, because every cent helps. Thank you for reading this, and thank you for your donations.