Hello, Geoblog world! My name is Valerie Toropin, though I commonly go by Lera, and I am an incoming Junior at Penn State Main with a major in Japanese and a minor in Applied Linguistics.

I’ll be going in less than a month to study for an entire academic year in Nagoya, Japan, at the Nanzan University there. I leave August 27th and I won’t be returning home until June!

Going to Japan has always been a bit of a life-long dream for me, and now that it’s coming about, I am admittedly nervous, excited, and stressed. VISA applications are currently being finished up, and soon, I’ll be cracking down on packing and getting ready for living my life in a completely different country.

As I write down my travels and everything that I learn over the months, I have a few specific goals in mind for this blog.

• I would like to make many video recordings of places I go to and things I see.

• I’d like to occasionally blog about interesting things I learn in my lessons, invaluable Japanese words, etc.

• I would like to vlog and verbally express what I’m experiencing.

• I would like to flood this blog with photographs. As a whole, on vacations, I return with 300+ pictures, so an entire year of a different country should set some records in photo-taking, I think.

My next post, I’d like to potentially discuss what I’ll be packing and why, as well as my expectations of the journey and what I will see/experience in Japan.

Location: Lansdale, Pennsylvania, USA