Hello Nyororin,
I have read your story, and I'm sincerely impressed. At the moment I'm 17 years old myself, and very busy trying to find a place in Japan where I can stay for 2 or 3 months - I have saved a lot of money and would leave tomorrow if I could. (I live in The Netherlands.)
I first want to experience what Japan is like when being there, there won't be any better way to find out. I'm also very determined to study Japanese, I want to speak it fluently. I have taught myself hiragana and katakana, although I must say my reading skills are far better than my writing ones. I also study Japanese grammar regularly and I'm figuring it out more and more, which makes it easier to understand what Japanese people are saying indeed, without knowing the entire vocabulary - it's like you said. Of course, I'm studying kanji too at the moment. However, I would love to study Japanese in Japan - in my opinion that is the best way to learn it.
My home situation, involving my parents, is not similar to the situation you've been through, it's bad in it's own way. I'd rather not go in further details about it here, but it is one of the reasons I want to go to Japan, I need my own space and I feel I'm ready to take on such a big responsibility. I'm interested in so many things about Japan (of course, anime and manga, but also J-music, J-drama, the culture, the inhabitants, the food, the fashion), Japan attracts me.
I could go on forever more, but I think I'll stick to this for now
I would love to get in contact with you via MSN/e-mail, I can use any tip, because when I leave to Japan I want to be as prepared as I can be and I wanna get in contact with people who live there. Please let me know if you are interested!
(By the way, I am new.. Have no avatar or signature yet.. But that doesn't make me less serious - some people don't take new members seriously. It's just that I saw this topic right after I joined this forum and I had to reply no matter what.)
Thanks a lot in advance