Where did my summer go??

So....I have less than a month left before I'm off. Seriously, what happened to my summer?! It feels like I've merely blinked and I have three weeks left.

Right now I'm spending my time with my mom and getting ready for the actual departure. Soon I'll be leaving to see my dad and then I'm off! I'm in the middle of getting my visa (I never want to deal with this process ever, ever again...), but overall I haven't pulled out as much hair as I thought I would going into this visa process. I'm puzzling more over what to get for my host family when I go to first meet them. I don't know who they are, nor will I know until I actually get to Japan during my orientation week. So it's really like groping through the dark here. So far I've gotten a deck of cards from Chicago and a coffee travel cup from Mall of America in Minnesota (where I am now with my mother). I was thinking of stuffing the travel cup with Lindt chocolates. I got the idea from the time when I bought some of these for my Japanese professors as a thank you present for writing my recommendation letters for the program...they were thrilled, and said that they were a luxury chocolate in Japan. I've still got to get more from San Diego (where my dad lives and where I was born and lived multiple but separate times) but still no idea what else I could buy. I guess I'll make it up as I go along...