july adventures

And just like that, another month has passed in between posts. In my defense, the past few weeks have been pretty busy! Since my last post, I have:

- gone to my first (and possibly last, sadly) PA conference, which was fun and informative
- gone on the first Chiba-kun Ambassador tour, which you can read all about here
- wander-biked to Makuhari, which was somehow probably one of the most enjoyable things I've experienced here
-  celebrated my birthday with karaoke with my coworkers, which was super fun (including a hilarious song about an unsuccessful goukon/group blind date that I probably won't forget for a while)
- agreed to be a block rep for API AJET, which is an interest group for Asian/Pacific-Islander JETs in Japan. Not sure what exactly it'll entail, but I'm looking forward to working with some other cool JETs from around Japan
- gone volunteering in Fukushima, helping plant organic cotton and weed, one day before...
- ...taking the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), which I've spent most of the past month studying like crazy for. I think it went well though, so we'll see! (But for now, no more studying. >_<)
- went to the '360° Beer Stadium' at QVC Marine Field, happily drinking cheap beer and watching a baseball game with my coworkers
- had my first block coordinator meeting, which is yet another new role I'll be taking on with this new JET year (and looking forward to, hopefully I'll do a good job)
- visited Sosa High School for their culture festival, which is something I wish we had in the US

I swear at some point I'll make a post on here that isn't just a quick summary of what's been going on in my life, but until then, you can read more detailed posts of certain adventures on my other blog. As the end of my first year of JET approaches (faster than I'd have thought possible), I'm sure I'll be posting some sort of reflective look-back on the year, so you can probably look forward to that, at least. :)