Unforeseen
So, because Narumi had asked me about where I was staying and when I was arriving and such, I had e-mailed Oga-sensei to ask about that myself. It was then that I got a kind of crippling response.
You will hear from our administrative officer about this sometime soon, but I regret to inform you that you will be assigned to "DK House", rather than
"Clark House" from April. I am sorry that we received many applications from other new exchange students for the rooms in Clark House before yours
and there is no room available at the moment.
I am so sorry that we couldn't assign you to Clark House, but hope you agree to live in DK house. If you have any question about DK House, please let us know. Although DK House is away from the university, the apartment is good and I hope you like it and enjoy living there with people from around the world (including Japan).
So, I don't have an apartment in Japan. Instead, I have to live in the 'Foreigner House' and share my room with two strangers. And I am not allowed to have guests. And the BEST PART ABOUT ALL OF THIS? The location. In the apartments I was going to be right near the school. At the stupid DK House? I AM GOING TO BE ONE AND A HALF HOURS AWAY FROM THE SCHOOL. THAT IS THREE HOURS OF COMMUTING A DAY. I....almost can't believe it. I asked for the apartment because I couldn't do a long commute, and what happens? They rent out all of the apartments and stick me in the foreigner house. I'm....beyond upset. I just can't DO three hours of commuting a day. I physically can't. I can do a half-hour, and I can probably do 45 minutes, but I can't commute three hours a day. The idea of it makes me want to cry. Not only that, I was barely going to have enough money to cover rent and food and NOW I have to add on an extra $12 a day for commuting costs. That's an extra $240 a month, and my travel budget for financial aid was only about $250 for the whole semester.
And, I can't have people stay over? Even if I shell out the extra money to have a private room? That just sucks even harder as I was planning on visiting with at least four of my friends and I was going to have them stay with me.
I can't go and rent an apartment on my own because in addition to the first/last/security deposit that they have in Japan, they also have something called 'Key money' which is a PRESENT to the landlord that could be anywhere from 1-3 month's rent, and you also have to pay a realtor's fee, which, again, could be 1-3month's rent. And you need to have a Japanese gaurenteeor, which the school would do, but still. I am not going to have 6 month's worth of rent to sink into an apartment on my first month. If I do that, then I won't have money to pay for my apartment the next couple of months that I'm there.
This is really upsetting for many reasons, but the first and foremost being that I didn't, for one second, THINK that I wouldn't get the apartment because she made it seem like I wouldn't have any issue getting the apartment. I'm just so upset by this. As a foreigner in Japan, you don't really have a lot of options for housing, either. Which is why with exchange programs, Universities usually take care of everything. And I UNDERSTAND that most Japanese have to commute for school and work. It's part of their culture and part of their lives, but....I just can't do it. I've done it before and it's really hard for me to do. What happens is that I end up staying in school/lingering because I don't want to go home. Well, not because I don't want to go home, but really because I don't want to have to face the commute. That happened the last time I was in Sapporo.
Ugh. This makes me so upset I want to cry. Really. I'm trying not to let it get to me, but I'm not sure I have very many other options right now. I'm going to e-mail Narumi and see if she happens to know anyone who would be willing to rent out a room closer to the school. We'll see how that goes.
You will hear from our administrative officer about this sometime soon, but I regret to inform you that you will be assigned to "DK House", rather than
"Clark House" from April. I am sorry that we received many applications from other new exchange students for the rooms in Clark House before yours
and there is no room available at the moment.
I am so sorry that we couldn't assign you to Clark House, but hope you agree to live in DK house. If you have any question about DK House, please let us know. Although DK House is away from the university, the apartment is good and I hope you like it and enjoy living there with people from around the world (including Japan).
So, I don't have an apartment in Japan. Instead, I have to live in the 'Foreigner House' and share my room with two strangers. And I am not allowed to have guests. And the BEST PART ABOUT ALL OF THIS? The location. In the apartments I was going to be right near the school. At the stupid DK House? I AM GOING TO BE ONE AND A HALF HOURS AWAY FROM THE SCHOOL. THAT IS THREE HOURS OF COMMUTING A DAY. I....almost can't believe it. I asked for the apartment because I couldn't do a long commute, and what happens? They rent out all of the apartments and stick me in the foreigner house. I'm....beyond upset. I just can't DO three hours of commuting a day. I physically can't. I can do a half-hour, and I can probably do 45 minutes, but I can't commute three hours a day. The idea of it makes me want to cry. Not only that, I was barely going to have enough money to cover rent and food and NOW I have to add on an extra $12 a day for commuting costs. That's an extra $240 a month, and my travel budget for financial aid was only about $250 for the whole semester.
And, I can't have people stay over? Even if I shell out the extra money to have a private room? That just sucks even harder as I was planning on visiting with at least four of my friends and I was going to have them stay with me.
I can't go and rent an apartment on my own because in addition to the first/last/security deposit that they have in Japan, they also have something called 'Key money' which is a PRESENT to the landlord that could be anywhere from 1-3 month's rent, and you also have to pay a realtor's fee, which, again, could be 1-3month's rent. And you need to have a Japanese gaurenteeor, which the school would do, but still. I am not going to have 6 month's worth of rent to sink into an apartment on my first month. If I do that, then I won't have money to pay for my apartment the next couple of months that I'm there.
This is really upsetting for many reasons, but the first and foremost being that I didn't, for one second, THINK that I wouldn't get the apartment because she made it seem like I wouldn't have any issue getting the apartment. I'm just so upset by this. As a foreigner in Japan, you don't really have a lot of options for housing, either. Which is why with exchange programs, Universities usually take care of everything. And I UNDERSTAND that most Japanese have to commute for school and work. It's part of their culture and part of their lives, but....I just can't do it. I've done it before and it's really hard for me to do. What happens is that I end up staying in school/lingering because I don't want to go home. Well, not because I don't want to go home, but really because I don't want to have to face the commute. That happened the last time I was in Sapporo.
Ugh. This makes me so upset I want to cry. Really. I'm trying not to let it get to me, but I'm not sure I have very many other options right now. I'm going to e-mail Narumi and see if she happens to know anyone who would be willing to rent out a room closer to the school. We'll see how that goes.