Well, it's been a while since my last post here, but in my defense, up until recently things have been pretty humdrum. Not boring per se, but not exactly thrilling, either. But the key words here are 'up until recently' - maybe it's because I'm already starting to feel like I'm running out of time in Japan (though right now I'll be here for at least another year and three months), but at any rate I've been trying to keep things exciting after settling in for (almost) two years.
Some recent stimulating developments in my life:
- A new office (space) for the second year in a row. As of April we are now on the 2nd floor as opposed to the 5th, in an even smaller room than last year. I suppose you can call it cozy, at least? While moving everything was frankly a pain, it does mean that I'll have spent each year on JET in a different location, which is kind of cool, and it is nice to have a change of scenery (figuratively speaking, because this new office looks over the parking lot).
- New English names for the City of Chiba! Up until now the English translation for 課, the basic unit in an organization that comes after bureau/department has been 'Section', while a smaller subsection, 係, has been 'Division', which I've felt has been backwards since I got here. This year I somehow managed to get permission to change all of the English names of 課 in the City of Chiba from Section to Division (and vice versa), which is both a big change and not at the same time, but it's definitely something I've been wanting to make happen for a long time and I feel like this'll be part of the mark that I want to leave on the city.
- I've also been able to make real measurable progress on my overall goal of improving the city's foreign-language pages (which are currently basically non-existent), by updating the English version of the city's living guide online (small steps). It's something that should have been done months and months ago, but after harrying my coworker in charge of the guide and convincing him to let me edit the pages myself, the updated version finally went online today and it's much easier to navigate and read than it used to be. This whole process has been a reminder that perseverance pays off and it also feels really nice to be working on something that isn't just translation.
- Signing up for a Korean class! I've been saying that I want to learn Korean for a while now but never actually did anything about it, until I saw a flier for small-group introductory lessons that were starting in April. I prefer group classes to one-on-one tutoring and the lessons are also run by an organization instead of a company so they're not too expensive, so this is basically the perfect chance to actually start learning Korean. I've only been to one trial class so far, but apparently they've only been doing pronunciation up until now so I'm excited for the first full lesson!
- I've also joined a yosakoi team (this one, in fact), which has been super fun! I'd thought about doing yosakoi (a type of Japanese dance) before but didn't follow up on that until now, and now I really wish I'd discovered this a lot earlier, like when I first got here. The team I've joined is really welcoming and the style of dance is intense but fun (lots of shouting and sweating), and they even go to a nearby park after practice to pick up trash and socialize, which I think is great. I went to see a performance of theirs on Sunday and though I didn't really get to watch since I agreed to take pictures for them, what I could see was really cool. It's really fun to do choreographed dance again, and I'm planning to go to a tournament with them in Hokkaido in June!
I'm also going to Taiwan this Saturday (!) for Golden Week for a few days and will be visiting some TOA friends in Shikoku at the end of the month, so it looks like May will be action-packed, which is perfectly fine with me. :D
No comments:
Post a Comment