tokyo orientation, day one

Today was the first day of Tokyo orientation, and boy, has it been a long day (though it's not over yet)! First off, even though I was exhausted when I went to bed at 10 last night, thanks to jet-lag I found myself waking up every two hours or so starting at 3am. At 6:30 I gave up and got up, even though our first thing wasn't until 9:00.

The day started off with a lot of speeches, followed by various workshops. I also met with the other people from my prefecture - they all seem really cool, which is good since I'll probably be seeing a lot them! I also go the fun surprise of finding out that I was assigned to be a Prefectural Advisor, which is not usually something that first-year JETs do. I'm a little nervous about it, since I'm supposed to be a resource for other JETs and I have absolutely no experience, but I've stopped freaking out about it at this point, so that's good.

After all the workshops (the CIR ones we had about how to answer phone calls and answer business emails were super helpful!), I felt like I was going to just fall asleep on my feet, thanks to jet-lag and a long day. After eating a little at our welcome reception, though, I'm feeling energetic enough to go out for karaoke with the JETs from my prefecture. I'm also currently watching Japanese TV for the first time in two years - I'd forgotten how much I love it! I'm watching a show called Q-sama, which my host mom and I used to watch together, and I even remember a lot of the faces. Good times. :)

Tomorrow we have our last day of orientation, including my PA training and a lot more CIR workshops. Hopefully by then I'll have adjusted and be a little less jet-lagged!

and so it begins!

Well, I've arrived in Japan! Instead of going into lots of boring details about my flight, here's a list of things I would have tweeted, if I'd had internet access:

        Wondering why I'm the only Atlanta JET not sitting with everybody else…because I'm the one CIR? #doesntmakesense #alittlelonely

       Cool, the guy next to me snores when he sleeps. Great news for a fourteen-hour flight... #fun #not

       I can watch TED talks on the plane! #verycool #nerd

       Ate my shrimp and then noticed the cocktail sauce. Ate my salad and then noticed the dressing. #fail

       So many movies, so little time! One thing I love about really long international flights.

       日本到着！Landed safely in Narita. #herewego #itallstartsnow

So then I landed in Narita and we took a bus to get to our hotel in Tokyo, where we'll be having orientation for the next two days. My friend Stephen from Carleton happened to be on my bus, even though he came from Seattle and most of us were from Atlanta, which was a lucky coincidence. After getting to the hotel and checking in, I went out with some other JETs and had a late dinner at a random noodle shop nearby. It was cheap and delicious! Now I'm back in the hotel and probably just going to bed early (even though it's only around 9:00 here), because I am exhausted and we have orientation bright and early tomorrow. 


I may post again in the next two days (while I still have a reliable internet connection), but things may also just be crazy with orientation and whatnot, so no guarantees! Until next time though. :)

japan, take two!

Hello!

So it's been a while, but like I said approximately 47 days ago, this blog is getting revived! Tomorrow afternoon I will be boarding a plane, ready to spend the next year of my life in Chiba, Japan, working as a Coordinator of International Relations for the JET Program.

For those of you that don't know, the Japan Exchange & Teaching (JET) Program is a program sponsored by the Japanese government in order to facilitate international exchange. There are two possible positions: ALT (Assistant Language Teacher), which for American JETs means teaching English, and CIR (Coordinator of International Relations), which is a lot more vague and official-sounding, and also a lot less uniform. What it means for me, working in Chiba City, is mostly translation and occasional interpretation, as well as possibly helping out with some exchange programs or English conversation classes once in a while. I'm a little nervous about my Japanese not being up to par (especially since I haven't really spoken it in months), but otherwise I'm looking forward to work!

I had my pre-departure orientation this afternoon, and that was when leaving for Japan for a year started to feel real. It's been a whirlwind summer, with just a week in between graduation and GHP and then just a few days between GHP and now, so I haven't really had a chance to process the fact that I'm actually going abroad for a significant length of time until now. I had also missed the Q&A session they'd held earlier because I was at GHP so I didn't get to meet anybody else leaving from Atlanta, but I did get to tonight! There are 38 of us leaving from Atlanta, of which I am the only CIR, and we'll all be on the same flight tomorrow (so I'm sure I'll get to know them even better by the time we land).

So I'm still not done packing (even though I leave in about 15 hours), but I guess this isn't really surprising. It was worth spending the day seeing people and at orientation instead of packing, so no regrets there - if I don't sleep much tonight it'll probably help with jet-lag anyway. But I probably should get to it, despite the party happening at my house that's at least ostensibly in my name,  so I'll end this here.

I should have internet at the hotel during Tokyo Orientation, so if I have time hopefully my next post will be from there! Until then. :)