year four?!

As expected, it has been a while since my last post. Things have been a little quieter, especially now that it's September, but they will go straight back to full speed in October: my first (and last?) ever overseas business trip (!), yet another wedding (even in Pittsburgh again, no less), and then our own big yosakoi festival in Chiba.

But anyway, back to what I've been doing since my last blog post. I feel like I haven't done as much as in the past, but what I have done has been pretty interesting/cool!

- I got to accompany the youth exchange students from Montreux and North Vancouver on two separate occasions, which is cool because 1) they were here at the same time, which usually doesn't happen and 2) since the program is run by the international association, I usually don't get to do anything with them other than interpreting for their courtesy visits to the mayor. This time though, since they overlapped and altogether made for a sizeable group, I got to go with them to the science museum/planetarium, lunch, Japanese garden, and a dinosaur exhibit (not all in one day)!

 - I also met and interpreted for the Irish ambassador to Japan. She was quite nice and friendly and didn't bring her own interpreter like ambassadors usually do, which means I did interpreting for both sides. But the content was actually much simpler than what we had been covering in interpreting class so I felt pretty good about it, haha.

 - Then I spent a day judging at a speech contest/presentation day for high-schoolers. I only judged the English speeches (not the Japanese ones) and may or may not have fallen asleep during one of the presentations (I wasn't a judge or anything though). I was impressed by the overall level of English, but it was the national level of the tournament so I guess that makes sense!

- August is the peak of yosakoi season, so there was only one weekend that I didn't spend dancing. The last one was the Nippon Domannaka Matsuri in Nagoya (the one where we made it to the finals last year), and while we didn't make it to the finals, we did make it to the semi-finals! Also a whole bunch (5 over the course of two days) of my friends from the CIRHP agreed to volunteer as staff, which was pretty awesome. I think they had a good time and I think having a group of Japanese-speaking non-Japanese volunteers around was good for the team, haha. (Fulfilling the goals of the international committee, yeahh)

 - And then - this is the highlight of my summer so far - I got to meet the US Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy! I received an official invitation from CLAIR to accompany a CLAIR official to his courtesy visit to the ambassador, as a representative of current JET Programme participants. Altogether they picked one ALT, one CIR, and two alums, so I felt pretty special. It was also very cool to go into the embassy and be on the visiting side of a courtesy call (for the second time ever). I was tickled to see the US seal on the coffee cups and napkins. But more importantly, it was an honor to be able to meet and introduce myself to Ambassador Kennedy, and she even asked me a couple questions about what I liked most about my job/my plans for the future (-.-'). Definitely yet another example of the amazing opportunities JET has given me.

 - And just this weekend I went on the monorail beer train with my old supervisor and some of my coworkers! I had been on the wine train before but they didn't seem to be doing the beer train - until this year, where I noticed just a few days before the application period ended. And in fact I didn't make the lottery the first time, but we were able to go because somebody cancelled last-minute! Apparently 6 times as many people applied as got in, which makes it even more amazing. Basically we got to spend two hours on a private monorail car, eating delicious bento lunch and drinking lots of beer (and cider and sangria). I was really amused because everybody was quite boisterous and drunk, which was definitely not what it was like on the wine train. At any rate, it was a good time, and I even won some goods in the lottery!

As I mentioned earlier, September is going to be my one quiet month for a while, because we don't have many yosakoi events and it's also the break in between interpreting classes. I actually wasn't planning to continue after finishing my last class (level 4, the last of the consecutive interpreting classes), because it takes a lot of time/money and I don't really plan on becoming a professional interpreter, so I didn't see the point in continuing to simultaneous interpreting, even if I got permission to move on. But then I got permission to move on, and after lots of thinking, I decided that this was an opportunity that I should just take while I can, since it can't hurt (anything but my wallet) and will surely help both my Japanese and hopefully my future career prospects. To be honest I wasn't even sure I could pay for it this time around but I remembered that I have a US credit card, and that the exchange rate would actually work in my favor for once! So I feel like I have managed to get a good deal despite having to dip into my American savings, especially considering how much the exchange rate cost me the last time I sent money to the US. I am excited to try simultaneous interpreting (though it will be hard), and even though I will have to skip two classes almost immediately after it starts.

For the moment though, I am enjoying my month of having relatively little to do and have actually been fairly productive in terms of things around the house or things I have just never had the time to get around to. I'm sure by the end of the month I'll be ready for some excitement again though, and luckily my business trip will be the first weekend of October! Until then, I plan to be as lazy as I can and give myself a chance to recuperate from the busyness of the first half of the year. :)