Cooking with gas

After continued frustration with insurance companies (short version: don't bother with Direct Line) I had a Monday off in lieu of weekend working. Keeping the old nose to the grindstone, it's actually been a very productive day. After a marathon 2-hour Japanese lesson (with a distressing amount of vocab forgotten) I nipped into STA Travel, where I was able to speak to a human being in person, and get insurance sorted in a matter of ten minutes - most of that reading out loud of obligatory financial regulation stuff. They weren't bothered about some counselling sessions a few months ago provided I wasn't on medication or regular doctors' visits. So yay.

I've also managed to pick up visitors' permits so that Mum & Dad can park the van they're bringing down to collect my stuff, and called in to check about getting some yen. In fact they had them in stock, and it sort of seemed easier just to deal with it rather than have to try and find another time to make the trip, so I did so. Walking back home was a bit alarming, I don't normally carry that sort of cash around with me, though it's not that much in the grand scheme of things. Enough to get me through the first week or so without stressing about cash machines.

Confirmation

After a few rather fretty days, I've finally heard back from the school that they've received my tuition and accomodation fee, so everything is in hand. On the strength of that, I handed in my resignation letter today. It's the first time I've ever had to resign - although I had quite a lot of jobs before settling into this one, they all had fixed contracts that I completed and moved on from, or were day-by-day temping arrangements that I stepped away from. So that was a novel and slightly nervy experience.

I'm now feeling out of Limbo, and able to push on more with planning and researching Fukuoka. I didn't like to do too much of that as it felt too tenuous; I just hated the thought of building up excitement and getting disappointed if things went wrong. I'll also, of course, need to plan to visit family, and those friends who are especially keen to see me again before I head off to another continent! With things settled I felt safe to announce it publicly, and a couple of people who've been to Japan have offered to advise, which is really handy. The more, the merrier!

Waiting game

Still in the unsettling stage of waiting for things to fall into place. I paid my tuition fee to the transfer agency* on Tuesday night last week, but still haven't heard back from the school. The agency say up to 4 working days to process payments, and of course the school may be busy with applications right now. Still, it's day 4 now... I suppose if they put it through today I may hear by tomorrow. It's a bit nerve-wracking seeing that much money disappear from your account and not having heard that it's arrived, though!

*The agency have offices in many countries and handle tuition fee payments for international students. You pay one branch in your local currency, they pay the school in their local currency and take a small cut. It saves on two lots of bank charges, so it should work out better overall, but it's still a bit faffy and introduces this one-step-removed problem. If I'd paid the school directly, once the money had gone I'd presumably know they had it.

Tuition Fees

After many and varied tribulations with the bank, I have finally been able to pay my tuition, which should firmly seal the confirmation of my place at GenkiJACS. It might have been confirmed as far as they were concerned, but I haven't been easy - I won't really be until they get back to me and reassure me. Perhaps over-sensitive of me, but this is a pretty major step and derailing this at this juncture would wreck things spectacularly, since I've already given notice on both job and house.

I'm pretty sure that was the most money I have ever had to pay anyone, and it was pretty nerve-wracking to be honest. I had to get Mum to double-check the figures with me (over the phone!) as I filled in the payment form's various categories. Feeling rather harrowed over here, and badly in need of this here herbal tea I just made.

Still, one more step, 慢慢来　(getting there slowly).