Happy New Year Everyone

Big shout-out to everyone, thank you so much!

Technical difficulties solved!

The technical difficulties have been solved and the widget to donate online is back up!

What Your Money Is Going Towards

          The program I am participating in is the ASF Intercultural Japan High School Program. The program will last eleven months and I will be leaving sometime in March 2014. The program is full emersion which means I will be staying with a host family and attending a local high school. I will be expected to learn the language and all classes will be taught in Japanese.  I could be placed anywhere in Japan but won’t know my exact placement and host family till a few weeks prior to departure. One thing I am very looking forward to is the rigorous academics. Being valedictorian of my class I am always looking for ways to expand my knowledge and Japan’s emphasis on education is just what I have been looking for. For a more in-depth overview of the program I invite you to check out the program website http://www.afsusa.org/study-abroad/high-school-abroad/display-program/?destination=44&category=151#.

            The tuition covers a range of expense that other programs generally leave out. By helping pay for my tuition you are helping cover my host school costs and tuition, my round-trip international travel, orientations prior to departure and after my arrival, insurance, and 24-hour emergency assistance. Not included in tuition, but also included in my fundraising efforts, is a $1000 budget for a school uniform. As a school uniform is required for Japanese students and are very well maintained there is not a guarantee that host volunteers can find a used uniform for ASF participants. For this we are asked to budget from anywhere from $500 to $1000 for a school uniform. For further information as to where my tuition goes feel free to visit Where Your Tuition Goes on the ASF website, http://www.afsusa.org/study-abroad/scholarships/tuition/where-it-goes/. Thank You So Much for Donating!

Donation Boxes and Thank you!

I have my donation boxes made so If you are interested in helping me fundraise or are willing to have one of my donation boxes in your local place of business Please let me know! I would like to thank everyone who has donated so far and has supported me in my pre-departure efforts. It means so much to me that other people want to support my dreams. A special thanks to the Scholarship donors who charity helps make my dream a reality!

My Journey to Japan is almost here

My name is Lizzy Reagles and I hope to be going to high school in Japan soon! I would be participating in a study abroad program in Japan where I will live with a host family and go to a local high school. It is a total emersion program so all classes will be taught in Japanese. To be able to participate in this trip would really be a once in a life time opportunity. 

I have won two scholarships for this program already. The Global Leaders Need-Baded Scholarship and the Western Carolinas Scholarship. With the scholarships I have been able to cover $5,000 of my tuition, which leaves $9,000 left to cover. I am currently putting together different fundraising efforts to help pay for the tuition. Because the amount left to cover is still a large amount I am asking for help from the community. Every little bit helps! I have joined the AFS Sponsor an AFSer program, which allows my friends and family to made secure non tax-deductible donations through my blog. Every donation goes directly to my AFS program tuition. No amount is too small--I know that times are tough, but every little bit will help me get a little bit closer to my goal. 

Thank you so much for reading this, and I would greatly appreciate it if you could forward this message to anyone else who you think might be interested in sponsoring my AFS experience.Keep checking back here to read more about me and keep up with my adventures once I actually get to Japan!

Rate and fast, Japanese Junk food

Candy and Soda shown
Ramune soda (Hello Kitty)
Ramune carbonated soft drink melon flavored
Yan Yan
Mangosteen Gummy Candy
chocolate of the interesting kind

Pocky, my new favorite snack!

So I found my pocky at Walmart though world market is a great place to get it. It comes in chocolate and strawberry I prefer the chocolate though. Its definitely is really good I would recommend this to anyone.

Into a New Journey

Hi everyone so I really wanted to make this to be able to better introduce myself better, hopefully I will be able to upload more videos like this in the future. Don't forget you can donate to my tuition via this blog in the upper right hand corner! I hope you enjoyed the video and have a good day!
Link to ASF

A little Japanese

So I have been trying to learn Japanese and I have noticed that Konnichiwa is often used incorrectly. So I thought  it would be cool to share with everyone some greetings that anyone can practice and use in real life! You can even use them to impress your family and friends with.

Ohayô Gozaimasu
Good Morning

Konnichiwa
Good Afternoon

Konbanwa
Good Evening

A little bit about me

So you guys maybe wondering who Lizzy Reagles is. Well if you have read my past post you already know about my passion for culture, but I've come to the conclusion that for everyone to understand why I would like to travel abroad I should really introduce my self better.   

Besides my love of culture I also have a love for cooking. Even though I am a vegetarian I love to be able experiment and make delicious meals that anyone could eat. I would have to say I like making others deserts the best because I love seeing the smiles it brings to everyones face. 

I am also a book worm. Reading books sends me to different places and lets me explore different situations. Reading to me is like traveling you get to experience so many different things, so many different emotions, all from the comfort of your bed. But it never compares to making your own memories by getting out there and doing stuff yourself.



I love getting out into the community and helping different people. I am involved with different clubs at my high school, one of them being

Interact club which is a club to promote volunteering in the community. Another is a club that I created with one of my best friends my freshman year called Helping Hearts. This club is very close to my heart, pun aside, because it is a club to help those with Special Needs.

When I was younger I was in the special needs class because of my reading disability. I was often ridiculed because of it. Later I was transferred into almost all honor classes and ridiculed because of that. Despite that I tried to make friends with as many people as possible. Currently I am number one in my class and am able to talk to a lot of my class mates. Despite that I am still really sensitive to people being bullied. I noticed no one really understood the special needs kids and made fun of them because of it. It has almost become my mission to help bridge this gap.

There isn't a lot of things that I can control as far as others are concerned, but I feel that I can control how I do academically, and because of that I take school very seriously, especially the learning part of that. I always say knowledge can never be wasted. I love learning how do do different things and being able to experience a wide variety of new things weither it is rock climbing, oil painting, or volunteering somewhere new. I feel you have to take control of your life to make it how you want it.

Studying abroad would give me the opportunity to make new friends and gain new knowledge. In particular I would really like to learn to speak and read Japanese. I have been trying to teach myself on my own for a while now and am only able to say a few simple words and phrases. Being able to study abroad would mean I could fully emerge myself in the language and be able to truly master Japanese. Studying abroad would truly be a once in a life time opportunity for me.

I hope that I have been able to give a better understanding of myself. If you have any question feel free to comment and I will try to answer all of them to the best of my ability. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, I hope you have a good day.

My name is Lizzy Reagles and I hope to be going to high school in Japan soon! To study abroad would mean the world to me. I have always dreamed of visiting far off places and experiencing new cultures. Japan is my destination of choice not only because of the amazing cultural differences, but because of the great opportunities I feel it will give me as far as future careers and life lessons go.

Japanese culture overall is very centered around respect, it has become a mixture of old traditions and new ideas. Japan has the 3rd largest economy and is a leading nation in scientific research. Being able to experience this amazing culture and bring back with me what I have learned will in return not only give back to me as a person but to the community around me as I hope to be able to share with others what I have learned. 

I have recently gone through some tough times because of some family issues and my family isn't currently in a position to be able to pay for all of my tuition costs. But this makes me even more determined to accomplish my dream. I am putting the extra money I make with my part time job into my fund to help pay for the tuition fees and the extra cost of travel abroad. Hopefully soon I will be able to host a fundraising event to help cover these costs.

I hope that I will receive some help in raising tuition; which is why I am asking for donations from people in my community. I have joined the AFS Sponsor an AFSer program, which allows my friends and family to made secure non tax-deductible donations through my blog. Every donation goes directly to my AFS program tuition. No amount is too small--I know that times are tough, but every little bit will help me get a little bit closer to my goal. 

Thank you so much for reading this, and I would greatly appreciate it if you could forward this message to anyone else who you think might be interested in sponsoring my AFS experience.Keep checking back here to read more about me and keep up with my adventures once I actually get to Japan!