Resolved Apartment Situation

I have a place to live! It is the place I mentioned earlier at http://www.skyt.jp/bukken/soubudai/ It was a very tough decision with a lot of stress, because I wound up in a situation where I had 3 hours to commit to this place or else lose it entirely. However, I'm pretty sure that it was the right decision. I realized that in all honesty the only thing that excited me about the guest house was the fact that it had internet access. In all other ways, the Soubudai apartment is superior. It costs only $500 extra for the whole summer, but it is an impressive 16.47 square meters instead of 6.48 square meters. I couldn't even figure out how I was going to unpack my bags into 6.48 square meters. Also, sharing a bathroom with 7 people might have been very difficult, and the 30 minute commute would mean that I'd lose an hour each day to the train. So, back to the downside. I'm not going to have internet access in my apartment this summer. I find this completely terrifying :-) I have no idea what I'll do when I come home from work if I don't have internet access! However, I wonder if this is actually a blessing in disguise. Without the internet to provide unlimited amusement, I might actually leave the apartment or study Japanese at night, and in doing so wind up with a more immersive experience. If I use my time wisely, I can probably get all my necessary personal internet use completed by staying an extra hour at the office. The homestay is tomorrow. I was relieved to discover yesterday that my host speaks perfect English, since at this point I really have no capacity to hold a conversation in Japanese. I hope that the gift I brought for my host family is adequate— other people brought far more fancy gifts than postcards and a guidebook. Buying gifts for strangers really is difficult :-( I'm doing my best to impress the other JSPS fellows with my award-winning personality, so that they will want to hang out with me once we've all gone our separate ways. So far I'm signed up for an outing in July with a few others to see a Sumo wrestling competition in.... some city. My Japanese geography is still very poor :-) In other news, I've found somebody to loan me a charger so I will have a fresh camera battery for the homestay. However, my connection cable is in the other bag, so there will still be no photos until after my bag and I are reunited.