Almost FRIDAY!

I'm not sure if I'm should be excited or not. If I was in more of a city area, heck yeah, I'd be happy... but no. I'm in the country side... like, I'm pretty sure it doesn't get more country than this... and nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to see. I mean there are only so many things I can hold off to do for the weekend (finish unpacking, organizing, reorganizing, snooping through stuff left here).

Anyways... a summary of the interesting stuff:

I went with a group on the 4:30 am bus to Atlanta airport, it was too early. We sat for 2 hours at the gate. Our plane was late, thus they held our international flight for us =D It was nice. I have found that I shouldn't eat airplane food unless I have to. It just doesn't agree with me :( At one point I stood around the bathroom for an hour... but there was a whole party in the back, hence the hour of standing there. (FYI, I just saw the CUTEST japanese commercial LOL).

Anyways, we arrived safe and sound and not a minute too soon (thank god there wasn't a repeat of last years flight... Me: "YAY WE'RE HERE!" Pilot "There's a lot of traffic we are going to fly around for 10-15 minutes" Me: "NOOOOOOOOO GET ME OFF THIS THING!!!"). The customs/immigration line was SO.F*N.LONG! I've NEVER stood in a line that long. Except at Disney World. I think it was seriously 1 hour. Put it this way, by the time we made it through the airport and on the bus, it had been 2 hours. So we ride the bus to the hotel...

The hotel was nice, but the food was mediocre. Orientation was, no offense to people who worked so hard, boring most of the time. There were some speakers that were able to hold my attention and make me laugh... but you know I swear "Every Situation is Different" is the key phrase to the JET Program... so how can these people tell me specifics about me job? Maybe general information... but we are big enough to read the handbook right? Oh well...

After orientation I headed with the other JETs from my area by shinkansen to our placements. Once I met my supervisors, I hopped in the car, and on my way I went. I said goodbye to civilization as it slowly disappeared behind me. I'm soooo inaka that my softbank doesn't work (which has unfortunately disappeared... hopefully when the alarm goes off tomorrow I'll find it). We stopped to get groceries then finally arrived. It's as big as I imagined. It's too big. Oh well.

I hardly slept last night. It's so hot in this apartment. I took a cold shower the next morning LOL. I was off after 8 with my supervisor to the BoE. I filled out my tax paperwork, gaijin card paperwork, then sat at my desk, then visited the schools. Somehow... I now speak chinese and play tennis =/ The tennis I can explain but I'm not sure about Chinese. I told my boss I studied Spanish in high school and French in middle school. At some point he decided I spoke Chinese too LOL. He asked me about my sports and I told him I use to go to the gym and play racquetball. He says "oh soft tennis". I figured this is racquetball... because there is a word for tennis (tenisu). So at a school he's announcing I play soft tennis... and outside I am shown the girls playing soft tennis... which is tennis -_- ooyyyyy... OK. Well at least I can say some words and chinese and can possibly play some tennis (just for fun). oy...

Then I went back to the supermarket for things I forgot. My male supervisor took me. LUCKILY we ran into a female teacher... because I needed to my female stuff :p and he hid on another aisle and didn't want to touch the female stuff... or acknowledge its presence LOL. It was pretty funny to me.

Anyways... tomorrow is Friday! yay? we'll see... I can at least catch up on sleep.

My Blog and the JET Program

To make things easier for everyone, I will continue to use THIS blog as my blog for the JET Program. So nobody has to deal with changing links, I don't have to set up ANOTHER blog and link it to facebook, yada yada yada. So maybe this is just easier for me....

But anyways... I did find out at the end of January this year I had an interview for JET in Atlanta. In February, after a 5 hour drive with my brother to Atlanta, and another drive back, I went through another lesson in patience. Tips for future JETs: during the interview, be yourself, know your application, and SoP. Do not memorize your strength/weakness speech and why you are the perfect candidate. This interview is much different than the one for your current low pay job. Also, with JET, get use to long waits.

In April, I received my acceptance, and recently I received my placement: Kyoto. I did not even request anywhere NEAR Kansai (the Osaka, Kyoto region, where I stayed during my most recent study abroad). I applied for this before I met my boyfriend. I was very surprised and VERY happy to get Kyoto as my placement, since it is the same prefecture as him :)

I am the only JET in my area, the next JET is 45 minutes away. At first I was pretty nervous about being placed out in the middle of nowhere. But then I see a lot of JETs being placed so close together in these bigger towns and little cities... and I just think that I can really learn Japanese faster being in this little town, I can learn more of the culture, spend less money... a lot of good things will come out of this placement and after emailing my predecessor, I'm excited about the activities I can partake in and learning new things.

So my new life starts this yaer. Nervous. Excited. This is will benefit me so greatly... I can see my goals so clearly now :)

Going Home

(Sorry it's so late)

Going Home
I awoke about 9 am realizing I need to get up because lord only knows how messed up this day can get. So I get dressed and walk to get my bus ticket that I failed to get last night because during the first attempt the konbini worker did not know how to get the bus ticket. So I headed back to Erin’s, rested, bundled up, then headed to find the other konbini… which ended up being closed. So I went to another konbini where I was showed how to get the ticket but you can only buy it from 6 am - 11 pm or so and it was after midnight. So this morning I walk to get it to find out you cannot buy the ticket for the day you need it. FAIL!

OK time for plan B. What’s plan B? Well… good thing I had a 15 minute walk to figure it out. I decided to call a taxi and just try my luck at the trains… by myself… with 2 suitcases and 2 carry-ons… GANBARIMASU! So I stood at the corner where the turn for Erin’s apartment was to try to flag down a taxi… fail… Fail… FAIL! So I decided to walk to the gas station and get some help, it worked well, I got one of the attendants to call a taxi for me and ALL BY MYSELF I got the driver to the apartment, gathered my luggage, got to the station, paid and was on my way.

I had a nice guy help me into the station… not that it was hard to do. But I won’t complain. I searched for my PASMO that had still a few hundred yen on it then realized... it was still in my jacket pocket... the brown jacket... that was packed underneath a lot of stuff and locked up... FAIL AGAIN! I took the train to Nishi-Funabashi then asked the eki-in how to get to the airport from there… I was told to get on the Sobu line to Funabashi the switch to Keisei. A young girl asked me here if I needed help… and at the moment all I needed to know was if the train coming was the one I needed to ride, which it was, so I hopped on there. At Keisei, a nice old lady helped me with my luggage all the way to the Keisei line. So nice, but I was confused about her telling “Eight… Eight” I was thinking platform eight… but the Narita Airport platform was 2. Oh well, I won’t complain. I had help every now and then from other people… I guess the more nimotsu you have the more helpless you look LOL.

I arrived to the airport on the slowest Limited Express ever. What kind of tokyuu was that anyway? It stopped at every stop from Funabashi! I got to the airport around 12, checked my luggage and HALLULAH none of it was overweight :D I proceeded to get lunch… my last Shaka Shaka Chicken… I ordered 2 ^.^ And a small fry. I talked to Ryota a lot from within the airport. Security was a breeze, and immigration stole my gaijin card ;____;

I got to the gate with 40 minutes before boarding started. I took a bathroom break, bought some drinks, forgot snacks, oh well, sorry if I eat people’s snacks LOL. I talked to Ryota more. I love my Japanese cell phone. Instant email… that’s all I really need in transit.

Currently on my long flight. Full flight. Good movie selection this time. Well, there is Harry Potter at least. I’m trying to read, rest, listen to music. I think the movie is starting soon. Had maybe dinner. Teriyaki Chicken. Pretty good compared to the food on the way here.

(Belly Button Check in the USofA)

Got to love going through security in one country just to go through it again upon entering the US. My friends and I dubbed this the belly button check. Customs was easy... where everyone seemed to be interrogated, I was asked what I was doing in Japan (studying) what I was studying (Asian studies and Japanese) and then the TSA guard next to mine started talking to mine... and mine started complaining about being sick on his stomach, feeling like he was gonna puke, wanting to go home, and shoo-ed me away.

Anyways, landing in Detroit I saw a winter wonderland… there was snow on the ground :) WOOO!! That’s something I don’t see often. I wish I could have played in it. I had about 4.5 hours layover in Detroit. I checked my gate, got over there, found it (or so I thought), went to get a drink, ate at Chili's, found some internet, listened to people sing karaoke, went back to the gate, realized it was not the right gate, found my actual gate, read, slept, then woke up within 10 minutes of take off. WOOPS LOL! I got on though. The girl next to me had her little dog on the flight. It was cute.

(One more flight: I'll be home for Christmas...maybe)
Now I’m sitting in Memphis. Short layover. I won’t bother going to look for internet though I really really want to talk to Ryota. They started to announce that our flight was overbooked and if someone volunteers to leave they get accommodation for tonight, a flight for the morning, and 300$ voucher... NO THANKS! I'm going HOME! On the plane, we found out that our landing gear was stuck and we would fly with it down which means flying lower and slower making our transit time over an hour. The lady I sat next to was nice :) We talked all the way there! I ended up being 45 minutes late.

We parked at the back gate with no breezeway to walk through. Coincidentally, it is where I departed the US from in July. As I was struggling to go down the steps, I was asked by some guy at the bottom "You got it?" and I said yes, watching the stairs... despite being in the country full of kaidan (stairs) I had yet become a stair expert... I'm clutzy lol... then he asked again if I was sure... and I looked up and it was a friend of mine :) Wow, that was amazing. I sped walked through the gate and to my family. It was nice to be home. I learned they were worried because the screen with arrivals and departures never changed from saying we were on time.