Well, my Nova placement information is starting to trickle in, and the picture it paints is a little different from the one I was expecting. For instance:

One, I will not be living in Tokyo as requested. I won't even be living in Tokyo prefecture (read: Tokyo county). Instead, I'll be living in neighboring Saitama prefecture, a revelation that immediately prompted my Japanese friend Yo to start making New Jersey jokes. Still, he offered some consolation to my living an hour away from the center of the action: "Mike, remember, pretty much everyone in Tokyo lives an hour away from Tokyo."

Two, despite my request for a single-occupancy residence, I've been assigned not one but two roommates. This one isn't such a big deal—at least it'll make the transition easier, and I can always find my own place later. Supposedly, the turnover at Nova is so high that having five or six different roommates in the space of a year is fairly common.

Three, no one can tell me where I'll be working. Uncovering the details of my year abroad has been gradual and arbitrary—the experience that can leave one feeling a bit... blindsided. The official Nova procedure requires you to have already purchased your plane ticket before you can be told where you'll be living. After that, it won't be revealed where you'll actually be working until after you've arrived in Japan. My morning commute to the office may turn out to be a brisk walk or an hour-long train ride. (I may come to regret not bringing my Brompton.)

These substitutions aside, I'm still looking forward to the trip. When it comes right down to it, they could dump me in the Japanese equivalent of Detroit and just tell me I was in Tokyo—it's not like I'd be able to tell.