one-year japanniversary

Today is my one-year Japanniversary! Exactly one year ago, I stepped off the plane in Narita and headed straight to Tokyo for orientation, nervous but excited to start my first year as a JET. Crazy, huh?

I feel like the time has flown past (but does it ever not? I'd like to think that this is a sign that I'm doing something right with my life), but I'm also at a paradoxical point where I both can and can't believe that it's been a year. It definitely does not feel like I just got here, and when I think back to events back before the new year they feel like ages ago, but at the same time I don't know how more than half of 2013 can possibly be over already.

At any rate, it has certainly been an exciting year of change, of new places, people, and experiences. Even I can tell that my Japanese has improved a lot, to the point where I can confidently say that I am at least fluent (though not at all near native, which is where I'd like to be someday). I've interpreted for the mayor during courtesy visits and other events with an ambassador, exchange students, and delegations from our sister cities; traveled to places like Ishigaki, Hiroshima, Takayama, Shirakawa-go, and Kanazawa and volunteered twice in Tohoku; made friends in the JET, ultimate, and dance communities; and essentially thoroughly enjoyed myself while living and working on my own for the first time during the longest period I've ever been away from home, in a foreign country halfway across the world. Not bad for year one, I think. :)

As for year two, I'm looking forward to both more responsibility and (hopefully) more adventures. While I probably won't get to welcome any more visiting delegations at work this year, I'm hoping to start a few projects, and in the JET community I'm excited to be both a block coordinator for Chiba and a national block rep for API AJET (an interest group for Asian/Pacific-Islander JETs). I'll keep hopping around Chiba as a Chiba-kun Ambassador, but hopefully also to more places both inside and outside of the country, like Hokkaido or Korea. In other words, keeping busy and trying to make this year even more exciting than the last.

To start things right off, I'll be spending this weekend in Shinjuku as a Tokyo Orientation Assistant to welcome this year's brand new JETs to their new home for next year (or two, or five)! I mostly remember Tokyo Orientation as being a blur of jetlag and meetings and far too many new people to remember any names, but I'm super excited to be on the other side of it a year later and I'm sure it'll be exhausting but tons of fun. I spent some time today practicing my presentation with my partner, and it's pretty weird to think that to the newbies I might be one of those people who seems intimidatingly knowledgeable and on top of things and good at Japanese (regardless of whether I actually am or not), which is how I saw most TOAs when I got here. It's crazy but cool to see how things can change in a year.

That said, how did I spend most of my day today? Thinking about starting to scrapbook with the (probably) pounds of fliers, ticket stubs, chopstick wrappers, and other junk I've saved up over a year but not actually doing anything, staying inside all day in my pajamas, and watching hours and hours of an anime I've already seen - just like I have countless times in the past back in the US. I guess some things will always stay the same. :)