It's been 2 and a half months of struggle and I have finally secured a sufficient amount of needles, test strips, and lancets.  Sadly, however, I haven't secured enough of the important stuff, insulin.  Insulin is the stuff that tells my body to consume the energy crystals that pile up in our bodies after we eat.  Without them, the crystals would pile up like snow on a stormy day and send my body into a state of chaos.  When that happens, many bad things can occur.  I can go into a never ending state of a coma - or even die.  Having Type I Diabetes, I need insulin to live.

Getting the medicine and clearance to take them to Japan has been a challenge; American Insurance companies will only give a person 3 months’ worth of prescriptions; Japan will only allow a person to bring in a month's worth into the country; every airport is an obstacle when carrying medicine with you;  and medicine is ridiculously expensive.  There are so many things a person would have to go through in order to make sure that their medicine makes it safely over into another country with them.  There are currently no guides that can help you get this done.  So, I made one, and I broke it down into three parts: “Obtaining Prescriptions”, “Securing Permission for Prescriptions”, and “Transporting Prescriptions”.


 
Preparation for study abroad has been very stressful.  Being Diabetic, I thought that preparing for my medicine would have been the most stressful part.  Boy, was I wrong!  There is nothing more stressful than losing money.  I’ve lost $5 before, but I have never lost over $3,500.  The situation I was in was exactly that.  When I had gone to my bank to check on what had happened to the wire, my bank told me that the other bank had received the money but did not know who it belonged to.  Before taking this to any of the UH (University of Hawaii) Mānoa International Coordinators, I made it a mission for myself to resolve this myself.  I did three things.

 
Only 37 days...  Boy, am I happy!  I am finally going to accomplish the goal that I set out for myself since the beginning of college.

It all started 4 years ago at Leeward Community College.  While I was waiting for class to start,  I came across a poster advertising a prestigious program called the "Monbukagakusho Scholarship."  It was a three year all-expenses-covered study abroad program in the country of Japan.  All it required was an essay, an application, a few tests, and an interview.  There was only one thing going for me at the time, the application.  Writing an essay was never my strong suit during high school, the materials stated on the tests were a bit above my level, and I had never been on an interview before.  The application was straightforward and easy.  It didn't require much writing or knowledge, and it was a "test" that I knew all the answers to.

After a couple of weeks of working my brains, I finished the essay and mailed in my papers.  All there was left to do was to study for the tests.  The tests were going to be easy... or so I wished.  The material was not a bit above my level but a lot above my level.  The level of Math problems and English questions they were going to put on the test were way above my current knowledge at the time.  I would've had to take a year's worth of classes in Math and English just to pass the tests.  I felt like a 5 year old boy attempting to do a slam dunk on an NBA sized basketball hoop.  It seemed impossible.

I knew that if there was any chance for me to pass these tests, it would be me spending endless hours studying until my brains were numb.  I wanted it so badly; I was willing to do just that.   I was set on making that slam dunk.  10 feet high or 100 feet high, it didn't matter.  I was going to find my way up there one way or another!  With only two weeks to go before the test, I studied as hard as I could.  I studied more than all of the time I spent studying in high school combined.  When the day came, I did my test, finished the interview, and one week later, I got an email from the scholarship committee.