Waxing Paranoid

Well kiddies, 'tis about one month before that terrifying time when I board a plane to destination unknown (okay, not quite so unknown.) In fact, in one month flat, I will be sitting, probably twitting with nerves, at a pre-Departure Orientation, asking myself if this could really be happening, if I forgot anything, who are my fellow Kagawa newbies.

They've started releasing information about the Tokyo Orientation, and AJET has sent us all a pretty PDF file crammed with bureaucratic goodness. Still no word from my predecessor or BoE (Board of Education) though. People on the JET forum say not to worry, that I'll most certainly get contact information before I leave, but I am the eternal paranoid. Lately I've begun packing boxes (mostly of books) only to unpack them, realizing that even if I did finish packing them I'd have no idea where to send them. At least I have a better idea now how to ship them.

With only a month left, the inevitable questions have started floating to the surface on the JET forum; these questions largely consist of one common theme... "What the F*** was I thinking??" One in particular-a post about dealing with long distance relationships-touched a little of a raw nerve. I've been awful lonely 'round these parts this summer.... What with most of my friends up and graduated and gone. Soon I'll be leaving too. Will I fall out of contact with everyone I know on this side of the Pacific? Will I make any friends in Japan... or will I be as lonely there as I am here?

It's such a strange realization, that time has crept up on you. I've been planning and schemeing and dreaming about JET and Japan since my early years in high school. Even once I discovered I'd been short listed, I was 98% excited, 2% nervous. But as the time grows shorter and shorter, I'm becoming 50% excited, 50% terrified. What will life be like, I wonder? What will the people be like? I guess... there's nothing to do but jump in and find out.

And blog about it, of course.

Sucker for Vaulting Gods

All right, now I certainly have to figure out how to watch the 2008 Olympics once I descend into Japan.

They're just announced the Men's Gymnastics Team, and my favorite pair of Ninja-Warrioring Twins are back at it again; Paul and Morgan Hamm.

Others include: Jonathan Horton, Justin Spring, Kevin Tan and Joseph Hagerty. Now I early await the announcement of the Women's Team.

Someday, Electricity Will Be Generated By Harnassing Cuteness Power

This isn't really Japan-related, but recently I "dragged" a group of friends along to a large zoo, and encountered this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdnlEsu-qng

I've always had a fondness for aquatic mammals (the dolphin has switched between the number one and number two spot of favorite animals since I was about 7) but otters just really take the cake. I can't get over how adorable and clever they are. Sea otters, river otters... I can easily stand and watch them swim, just swim, back and forth and back and forth for hours. I'd also happily build them a habitat in my backyard when I'm an adult.

If you can manage it, I beg you to sponsor an animal or donate to a conservation program. Doesn't have to be from this zoo, or this animal, but if ya can... anything.

http://www.mnzoo.com/guests/sponsor.asp

The Constitutional Right to Freedom of OS

Now I'm a Mac user. Sorry but it's the truth. I accept that your preference of OS is much like your preference of religion; completely your choice and based upon personal needs. (I could go on and on about how Macs are Buddhism, PCs modern Christianity, and any fear of technology similar to atheism, but we just won't go there.)

But I've recently converted to Apple, and I love it. I love it largely for the simple English-Japanese switch and the built-in spell checker into anything you write, like for example in a blog or a forum. I also love it for iMovie, though iLife '08 is proving verra verra tricky, since I'm so used to '06 from campus.

Anyway, recently found this video, and I just needed to share. It's especially funny if you're very familiar with Moviemaker vs. iMovie. (And ya gotta love the subtle masochism, right? Right?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h30LQY3xWEI&eurl=http://www.joshuazimmerman.com/blog/2007/07/

Oh the Places You'll Go

I am very grateful to be part of my particular consulate. Other JETs out of the consulate have set up Facebook groups for prefectures and areas. Even better, our consulate liaison has suggested a wonderful book set called "Lonely Planet."

Wandering the bookstore today, I picked up both the Guide to Japan as a whole by Lonely Planet, and the Tokyo Guide, both of which I think I'll find very useful, especially since I want to do a lot of traveling.

I would like to visit Tokyo twice in the next 12 months. The 2nd time will probably be just to soak in the environment (after playing "The World Ends With You," I'm especially excited to check out Shibuya (しぶや), though I'll need to be far more trendy before I do) but the 1st time will be for the annual Tokyo Game Show, sometime in early October.

I tell ya, I'm starting to get pretty excited about all the places there are to explore, even just within Kagawa (かがわ). Terrified, too, of course.... but also excited.

At Long Last, I Escape Winter

There's a popular saying that Wisconsin has two seasons: winter, and road construction. (Considering that it is late May, and suddenly every two-lane in town has morphed into a twisty, turny one lane separated from certain death in the form of an oncoming semi by just a few measly orange cones, I believe this saying to be true.)

On the JET application, I did not specify any placement wish. My logic was: 1) I just wanna go. 2) Never been to Japan. I'd be picking prefectures at random, so why not just let them do it for me? 3) The less I demand, the more likely they'll put me someplace nice! (Sometimes I wonder if they would stick a kid who requested Tokyo into a small, fisherman town as far from Tokyo as possible just for spite.)

My one fear, as I sat last night contemplating the fun realization that I had no idea where I would be living in little over 2 months, was," Not Hokkaido. Anything but Hokkaido."

This is no knock against Hokkaido, which I've heard (maybe sarcastically) is a quaint, lovely little (big) prefecture. But I have had enough of Wisconsin winters for a while, and from my crude understand of meteorology, Wisconsin and Hokkaido could be twins.

Low and behold, at 5:44, I received my placement.

Kagawa-ken.

At first, mild amusement. (My university 先生 is 掛川.) Then mild panic. Where the heck is that? A few frantic Google searches later, I discover: 

1) it's in Japan. (What a relief!) 

2) It's on an island. Well, okay, duh, all of Japan is an island, but it's on ANOTHER island. Shikoku island, to be exact. 

3) It is (more or less) across the sea from Osaka-ken, which my mother will be thrilled about (she had her heart set on seeing Osaka and the cherry blossoms in April there. Her and her guide books....)

4) It's one of the smaller prefectures. 

5) Best of all... it's warm! Very mild winters... so mild, the snow almost never sticks around. 

Ha! At long last, winter, I have evaded your cold and clammy grasp! I'm going somewhere warm-with actual humidity! 

Now onto my CO. I don't know what city I've been placed in, but my contracting organization is listed as Mitoyo-shi. So yet another frantic Google search ensued, and...

1) Mitoyo is a municipality on the western side of Kagawa. 

2) It's about 130 square miles, so to convert it into Midwestern speak, it's about 2 hours wide. 

3) It has a population density a little less than where I'm living now, so not urban, but not thoroughly rural either. A nice balance, so I gather. 

4) According to my friend Gay Megaman, with my contracting organization being the -し instead of the -けん, I can expect to be working with middle schoolers and elementary school students. 

And that's all she wrote, folks. Now I eagerly wait (that's the word of the year!) for news, any news, from my predecessor and contracting organization. I'll be here, holding my breath, if you need me.  

Are We There Yet?

I have decided that JET (at least this stage of it) is nothing but a long waiting game. A long, excruicating waiting game. Let me illustrate:

-early September to mid November: Wait for the application for the next year to go online.

-December: Wait for notification that your consulate received your application.

-rest of December to early January: Wait to see if your application has been accepted, and granted you an interview.

-early January to late February: Wait for the interview, and soak in your nervous sweat.

-late February to early April: Wait to see if you are accepted. Convince yourself 15 times a day how well/poorly/undecided you did on the interview, usually in a rotating fashion.

-early April: Get accepted!!! Hurray! Then here comes the avalance of paperwork.

-early May: Wait anxiously about whether the consulate has gotten your paperwork. (Darn you Post Office!)

-mid May: Wait anxiously for various government agencies to get your paperwork, and return their own paperwork to you so you can return it to the consulate.

-late May: Wait for placement. This is where I am sitting. The word on the web is the South Africian and Toronto consulate received their placements within the last two days. Chicago's placement list goes up today at 5, so right now I am twiddling my thumbs, trying to pretend I am thinking about something else when the only thing occupying my mind is," Come on clock. Faster! Faster faster!"

Still, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. It'll make applying to grad school in December feel like a breeze. ("Only a two month waiting period? No problem!") And what a relief to finally be nearing the end of it! Or, at least, the end of the waiting period for the placement. Now there's just the actual waiting for Japan.

Well, that, and the whole Visa-application, CO-contacting, predecessor-contacting, box-mailing-fiasco....