It's been a while.
Well, a lot has happened since my last post. I was supposed to update a long time ago, but I never got around to it. Anyways, I'm officially a graduate now, and I'm just waiting for my degree in the mail.I got my web site up online http://students.uat.edu/chamontg, I just need to get my own webspace instead of the school one. I also got a video posted of my speech and the animation done for it on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meD3O_6LLNQ
So now I'm kinda just looking for work, and doing some freelance webdesign and practicing to get my portfolio better. I'm gonna apply for the jet program, it would be an awesome opportunity, I can study Japanese, Learn more about Japan, and help children with English, and I would have a lot of time to do computer work. However, JET isn't for a long time, and there is no guarantee I will get it, but I will try.
The JLPT is coming up this December, I'm studying for that as well. The JLPT is the Japanese Language Profeciency test. I plan to take the level 3 this year. Depending how soon I can get back to Japan will determine if I take the level 2 next year. I know I haven't posted in a long time, and this post is probrably hard to follow, sorry.

Speech Contest!

So, this past sunday I did the 19th annual Arizona state Japanese language speech contest. Well, the weather was extremely hot; but the Japanese friendship garden was a very nice place to hold the competition. It was a long day of speeches, but very enjoyable. Guess what. Marty Friedman was there, the former guitarist of Megadeath. That was pretty awesome, but I didn't realize who he was until the day after, when everything clicked in my head. Anyway, when I first got there, I was insanely nervous, but after some walking around, I was able to calm down a bit. By the time it got to my group, I started to get nervous again; but once my speech started, I started to relax and go with the flow. After all the speeches were done, there was a tea ceremony, and then a long wait until the awards. When it came time for awards, I became nervous again; but, all my hard work paid off. I got second place in my category out of fourteen people. I was really happy, and I won some really cool goodies. I'll post back soon with more details. see you then.

The Update of a lifetime...

Well, it has been a while since I last posted; and a lot has happened since that last post. I am not less than a week from my university graduation ceremony. Well, I'm not officially done with college, but since there only one ceremony a year, and I'll be done in the summer, I am able to participate. So next semester is my actual last semester in which I need to find an internship and complete two small classes. I'm also getting web space to put my portfolio online. I made the site completely in Flash, as Flash is my weapon of choice. So I'm hoping that will get straightened out so I can get it online. I have still been studying Japanese also, after the trip, I realized how great it is to experience different cultures; and I have taken studying Japanese more serious than I used too. Hence I am participating in the Arizona speech contest this Sunday. I'm starting to get exciting about it, I hope I can deliver the speech the way I have on my practice runs. Other than all that, I'm thinking about what to do after college, depending on what internship I get, that could lead to a few things. I also have given thought to travel to Japan to try to work abroad, or study abroad at a university. I'm sure a lot more happened since my last post, but I think these were the most interesting things. I'll also post back after the speech contest.

Alright, my second post, but finally some interesting stuff.

This weekend is Toukasan, a big festival in Hiroshima, where girls dress up in yukata, similar to a kimono, and guys wear jimbei. Anyway, a fellow classmate and I decided to go before everyone else, since we were not going to wear jimbei of yukata, like all the other students. The first thing we did when we got there was go to the Sega arcade; not very cultural or related to Toukasan, but still very fun indeed. After that, we starting walking towards the actual festival, we reached a small part of it where a lot of food stands were. We decided to eat later and to see a shrine that we needed to see for our religion class. So we spent like an hour and a half looking for the shrine, which we didn’t find, because we kept walking past it. When we finally did find it, it was so crowded that we could only stand there for about 30 seconds. Looking for the shrine was pretty tiring, so we decided to go to some more arcades; one of them actually had Half life 2 survivor. After some walking, we went into a 7 11, we took a look around and stared looking at the magazine section. I was looking at a manga about samurai, when “friend” comes up to me with open nudie mag saying “Charles look”. So I look to see him standing there with the magazine open to some girl with her top half hanging out, and there was a guy right next to him, strange. After 7 11, just went back home on the over crowded fear train. This was by far the scariest train ride I have been on since getting here. First, when the train was loading, a lady tripped on my foot, we both said excuse me, no big deal. A few minutes later “friend” tells me that the guy across from us is probably reading a dirty manga, so I look up to see what he is talking about, and the girl next to him now thinks I was staring at her, so I quickly look down, and when I look back up, she is still staring at me. So I decide to look to the right, were there is this girl who notices me and tells her friend “hey look a foreigner”. So now there’s three people staring at me, so then I just look down. After a while I figure its safe to look back up, and when I do, the guy standing in front of me, is looking down at me, so I just looked at the ground for the rest of the train ride. The long scary train ride.

Hello, sorry, but this is the first chance getting to post. It was very troublesome getting internet on the campus. Anyway, I at Hiroshima Shudo University; and at the moment, I’m in my homestay. Well, let me start from the beginning, this post will probably be long as it will cover about four days. Well, 5:15am, La Quinta Inn, Phoenix. I decided to set the alarm on my phone, good thing I did because I did not get the wakeup call I requested at check in. I caught the first caravan to the airport at 5:30am, arrived at my terminal about 10 minutes later, and got in line. Sensei and some other students were already there before me, so I knew I was at the right place. Check in took forever because there was about 60 people in line all going to San Francisco. One family was checking about 8 bags, so that did slow things down a bit. But everyone was able to get through on time, which is all that matters. The flight to San Fran was about 2 hours, so it wasn’t too bad. San Francisco airport is huge, it was my first time there, and it is an amazing airport. Well, the lay over was about 2 hours, enough time to buy a disgusting sandwich and some barely flavored potato chips. Now for what I know you have been waiting for….JAPAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, wait… there’s a 12+ hour flight before we get to that. The flight was ok, except that my seat had like something blocking were I would have stretched my legs, so my legs were even more crunched. On this flight I realized, that if you sleep, and the stewardess is serving food or snacks, you wont get any, and no one will wake you up. One guy missed a whole meal on a 12 hour flight because he was asleep. Anyway, we got two meals, so the guy didn’t miss the second one. One cool thing about international flights is that, each seat has a tv and about 30 channels, with movies, tv shows, just about anything. The cool thing was, whenever you go to a channel, the program starts from the beginning. So, after the flight, we’re finally in Japan, all that’s left is an hour and a half flight to Hiroshima from Narita, Tokyo. I fell asleep on that flight, so I didn’t get the green tea or the candy that was passed out. After the flight, we were finally to our destination, and glad to not have to fly anymore. At the airport, Mr. Ootsu was waiting for us, so he could drive us to the university. That was about 30 minutes until we got there to be surprised by about 20-30 students of the school. It felt good to be welcomed after so much traveling. After the introduction, we got bento lunches, they were pretty good, pork cutlets, rice, plastic lettuce, I forget what else, but it cured an empty stomach. Once we finished eating, we were able to go to our rooms and setup. I decided to take a shower that night, since orientation would be early, and I wanted to get as much sleep as possible. Orientation wasn’t earlier enough to my surprise; I was up at 5:30am. I went to the restroom, and Travis, another student on the trip, was up and ready to explore. We were talking out on the balcony when my roommate got up and joined us; after that Travis’ roommate also joined us, and decided to go for a walk. We walked down one of the school drive ways for a little bit, and stopped to see some of the rice fields near the school. It looked great, and there were a lot of mountains in the background covered in trees. The Shudo campus is very green. We stood looking at the scenery which was great, but then it started to rain, so we decided to head back….

Hey, sorry for the big skip, but really haven’t had time lately. Nothing really great happened yet, but I’ll try to have constant posts from here on out.