#jet program 2014

[kiracatlover]

Sanwa Tondo Festival!

Sunday I was invited into a Tondo Festival in Sanwa by one of my friends. When I was invited I had no idea what it was, so I decided to accept her invitation and go! The location wasn’t too far from my BoE which made it easy for me to get there.

When I arrived, people were showing up and children where writing their hopes and wishes for the up-coming year and placing them the mountain of…

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[kiracatlover]

November Catch Up!

November has been crazy busy but fun! I got to do and see a lot of things I’ve never done before, meet a lot of new people, and had time to think about my future. I have had some health issues this month as well but I didn’t let them get in my way of having adventures!

To start of this month, after my cat café adventure, I had culture festivals for all three of my schools. Unfortunately, I was…

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[kiracatlover]

A Week in the Life of a JET in a Inaka Town

I should start this out by saying that there are two of us in my town. I work three schools and the other JET works four. Their schedule and daily activities are most likely different than mine. This is my experience and what I do. The JET Program motto is “Every Situation is Different” and this is mine.

Junior High School Days: Monday’s, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

7:00am

I wake up Mondays,…

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[kiracatlover]

October Catch Up!

Sorry for not posting in a while! I’ve been busy and really haven’t had the time, or the want, to post an entry. October wasn’t as exciting as the past few months, but I got to do a lot of firsts!

On October 12th, I went to a festival in the village of Yuki in my town. The festival was to celebrate the bountiful harvest despite all of the unusual weather we have been having! My friends Makiko and…

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[readysetgaikokujin]

Hi :3 So I'm also interested in going through JET program and learning Japanese. I was just curious how you got your assistant language teaching job? :)

Hello briherenow! Not sure how to cover it more, but I'll link you to previous blog posts I have answering these things more in depth.

First off, take a look at the official JET page. This will give you guidelines and resources to check off so that you can plan ahead of time for applying. Of those guidelines, JET asks that you have at least a bachelor’s degree, but they don’t really care what it is in. I have no knowledge of Japanese, and I got hired. As long as you have some degree, you are eligible to apply.

Once you start the application process, you will be asked to do a ton of application paperwork. Don’t stress too much over it. I have known people who agonized over their statement of purposes and were put down as alternates or denied; and I know people who did their entire application in three days who were shortlisted and are still teaching [hint: that last one is me and I do not advise giving yourself three days, it is super difficult to get professor recommendations in that little amount of time]. Just do your best, give yourself time to think of how you're marketable and what you can bring to the program. After that, there is more paperwork, an interview, more paperwork, and a lot of wait time.

The thing with JET program is that it doesn’t release why we were chosen from the candidates that applied with us. We can speculate. But we never know for sure what made us the better choice. So the best advice I can give you is the go into this process with a very positive attitude and a flexible demeanor, because you are getting into this program to try to share your culture with Japanese kids and coworkers, and that is not always easy. The program wants to know you won't quit when it gets tough.

Best of luck to you, and to all hopefuls now prepping their applications for the next year! If you have any more specific questions about the process, let me know, and I hope this helped.

[kiracatlover]

Tomo no Ura

On Saturday, I went to Tomo no Ura with a a tour group that was hosted by FAGE (Fukuyama Association for Global Exchange). It was a nice 5-6 hour event where we broke into small groups and was able to explore the area with a tour guide. The event cost 800 yen and included lunch, which was a traditional Edo period style dish, and round trip transportation to and from Tomo no Ura.

Tomo no Ura is…

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[kiracatlover]

Part Two: Driving From Jinsekikogen Junior High to My Apartment in Toyomatsu

Hey everyone! I was finally able to upload part two of me driving from Jinsekikogen Junior High to my apartment. It starts roughly 9mins  into my drive which usually takes 20 mins. I only filmed 16 mins of the drive which was broken into two parts because of my camera. Anyway, here is part two of my drive :)  Enjoy!

WARNING: May cause motion sickness so please be careful when watching.

[youtube=h…

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[dance-of-the-cherry-blossoms]

First week as a *teaching* ALT

I have just completed an entire week teaching as an assistant English Teacher in Japan. And the verdict so far? So much fun~ My elementary school kids are so cute, and they think that I am rich and my junior high students are so quiet and obedient! But all of them enjoy running around and love to come up to me and shouting “Hello!” followed by a stream of questions in Japanese. I have introduced myself so many times, it’s bordering on ridiculous, but I know I have to keep doing it; I haven’t met all of my classes yet as I’ve been splitting my time between three different schools. I won’t pretend that I am not exhausted; so sleepy, the getting up at 6am every morning thing is taking it out of me big time, but it’s a good type of exhaustion. I feel like I’m doing something worthwhile; in a country that I really love, surrounded by nice teachers and my cute little students; I feel good, this is good. …. That is, not to say that there hasn’t been a few things that I have had to get used to and quickly. For example: riding a bike. Now this doesn’t seem like a big thing, but when I was at home, I could drive and did so since I was 16, so I have not ridden one of those infernal contraptions for almost 6 years, and the way people drive in Japan… it surprises me every day that I don’t see a car crash every few meters. They dart in and out of these tiny streets and high speed in their cars; on their mopeds; on their motorbikes and bikes and I haven’t yet *touch wood* seen an accident. Another thing is grocery shopping. It is taking me twice as long to shop for myself, and I feel seriously sorry for those who have no or very little background in Japanese to try and buy food and other items; especially if you have like a food allergy or intolerance or are a vegetarian; finding the right words is harddddd. Another thing that I’m still trying to get used to is the Kyoto dialect of Kansai-ben. So, while they speak Japanese, it’s very different from the Japanese that you may learn at school, or wherever, and it sounds very different; that’s Kansai-ben. The Kyoto version is slightly different again as it incorporates more of the Japanese we learn at school with Kansai-ben added in, then stick in their own quirks to it. And the kids talk in it at a million words a second because if they have something that want to tell you; they want to tell you as fast as they can. The last bit is Japanese computers. While the operating system isn’t different, apart from the fact it’s in Japanese, the biggest thing is the keyboard. All of my schools are kind enough to allow me to use their laptops so I don’t have to drag my laptop around from school to school, which is great, but the keyboard is sliiightly different and it sometimes drives me up the wall. For example, the space bar is smaller than an English keyboard, if you hit the caps lock button you’ll start typing in Japanese as well as there’s a button that sits next to the shortened space bar that is dedicated to changing between the scripts. And lastly, the symbols are all on different keys; it took me a longer time than I’m willing to admit to find the underscore key. But these are all things that I can get used to, it’ll just take time. I have to remember to be patient with myself and my surroundings, and hopefully it won’t be a problem anymore. PS. I’m losing my English, which is why I keep writing so that I can still use it, but if there are any grammatical mistakes… please forgive me!!