I was chosen as an alternate candidate back in July and heard nothing more of it until Christmas Eve. I just checked my email today and I received an email from the consulate.
Dear Ms. (uranussama)
Thank you very much for applying 2010 scholarship by Japanese government.
In this mail, we would like to announce you the result of scholarship in Japan.
We officially received the result this morning through the ministry of foreign affairs.
According to that, you passed a final selection by Japanese ministry of education.
We are very happy to hear such a nice result of you.
By February, the ministry of education will be making an arrangement with the university that can accept you.
After the ministry of education gets a final approval from the university, you could have rights to go to Japan from April.
Please let us explain detail to you later.
My assistant will call you after Jan. 4.
Have a happy Christmas!
This sounds good obviously but now I'm wondering if that's just a confirmation of me as an alternate candidate... the person who sent me this email isnt the person who usually deals with the scholarships, that person is on vacation. So at first I was really excited but now I'm kind of worried that I took it the wrong way... after all I was just an alternate. :?