national professional stuff

So I may have mentioned that June was incredibly busy and that I spent three out of four weekends essentially away from home (though looking back, apparently I thought my Shikoku trip was in June instead of the end of May -.-'). I wrote about the (actual) first weekend (my yosakoi trip to Hokkaido), so here's what I did for those other two weekends!

The first one was National AJET changeover. I'm sure I mentioned here that I was elected onto the AJET (Association of JETs) National Council as the CIR representative, so we all met up in Narita to meet each other and the outgoing council and learn about our new positions. I was actually scheduled to take the Business Japanese Proficiency Test during the second day of changeover, but I decided to attend both days since it's pretty much the only chance for us all to meet (since we're all over the country). So I spent the weekend learning about National AJET and being the CIR rep and Project Manager (which is my secondary position on the council), which was a lot to absorb at once but also pretty fun! Most of us spent the night in the same hotel and we had dinner at the hotel buffet (including all-you-can-eat crab legs!) and hung out afterwards. Being on the council is definitely going to be a lot of work (it's already keeping me pretty busy) and involve lots of new experiences, but I think I'll enjoy it. :) I also took part in the AJET opinion exchange with CLAIR and the three Ministries that run the JET Program the next day, which was official but informative.

And then the next weekend was IJET 25, or the 25th International Japan-English Translation conference! I actually heard about it from a fellow JET who was going, and since it was in Tokyo for the first time ever I thought it'd be a good opportunity for some professional development and signed up. And it was! I'm pretty horrible at networking so I'm not sure how much of that I managed (I did come back with lots of business cards though), but I met a lot of professional translators/interpreters and got to attend some interesting and informative sessions, so I think it was definitely worth it. I even met some other JETs (besides my friend) from other prefectures, which was pretty cool. The next one will be in Edinburgh, though, so I doubt I'll have the time/budget to attend. Oh well!

The last weekend of June was spent at the Chiba City Museum of Art with my friend Chris, and also on the first Chiba-kun Ambassador's tour! But more about that in my next post. :)