School starts

Well, this past week was the beginning of classes. I was excited and nervous to see the students and actually have to speak in front of all of them. I visited two of my six schools and Just did an lesson introducing myself for all of them. The students were also encouraged to ask me questions, most of them were run of the mill questions about me. However, one kid asked "Where will you go on you honeymoon?" I really had no answer for this and just stood there for a bit, until the teacher diverted the question. I also visited an elementary school, which was an adventure. I woke up early, because this school is the farthest from me. Thinking I had to be there at 8:30, I left at 7:30 just in case I got lost. I did get lost, hardcore, ended up in the next town over. So, I went around asking how to get to the school, most people were just like "Go that way." Which kinda helped, because it led to a little elderly lady who gave me a 15 minute description of how to get there; most of which I couldn't understand. I was able to pick up a few landmarks and such, so it wasn't a total waste. Anyway, I get there about 9, and thought I was late and had missed a class, but the secretary was like, "You're an hour early." We both got a good laugh about me going to the wrong town. The school is really small, population wise; only 12 students. They all seemed excited to meet me, which was a relief, it made it easier to talk and play with them. After I was done with lessons there, the Vice Principal, showed me how to get back the proper way, I also saw the mistake I made that got me lost; so now I'll remember how to get there for sure. All in all, the first week went well, met a lot of students and teachers, and will meet more next week, when I visit some of my other schools. Today I took some pics around my apartment here, I also plan to go to the beach in Ogi with some of the others, so I should have some pics of that later. Tomorrow I'm going to be volunteering in the triathlon, passing out bananas to the runners, should be fun. I plan to take some pics of that as well. Well, I hope you enjoyed the post and until next time.

Some pics

Well, I finally got around to taking some pictures. These are from when I went to Aikawa beach last weekend. http://s680.photobucket.com/albums/vv164/eightbitplus/Aikawa%20Beach/
I took these on my phone, which has a better camera than my current digital cam 8mp > 4.1mp.
Im planning on getting a new sony 12.1mp soon. I also plan to take some pictures around my place, so stay on the lookout for those. Until next time.

Month One.

Well, I have been in Japan for a month now today, I barely got internet yesterday so I am finally able to post again. I decided just to do a little recollection of the first month from what I can remember.
We flew out on Saturday, the 25th, at around 1 something via JAL, the flight was about 10 hours or so; a few hours shorter than my last trip to Japan, so I was happy about that. However, I couldn’t sleep at all during the flight. Also, the in flight entertainment was not as good as expected, there were many channels to watch, but unlike last time, the movies did not start when you switched to the station, you had to wait until it finished and started over. So, I only got to watch one movie and about the last quarter of another; the rest of the time was spent trying to sleep. The meals on the flight were not that bad. After the flight and airport/customs business it was onto the Keio Plaza hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The first night, we had to go out and find dinner on our own. I met up with a few people I met before the flight, and went out to search for food in the city. Before we went to eat, we went to the Shinjuku watch tower; it gives a pretty good view of Tokyo. I took a few pics, which look terrible thanks to my lousy old camera. After that, we walked down some of the busy, brightly lit alleys to find some food and call it a night. We found a small noodle shop; the food was ok, maybe a 6/10, definitely left something to be desired. After the meal most of the group wanted to head back and rest since orientation started early the next morning; but one guy wanted to venture around since we would only be in Tokyo for a very short time. So, another guy and I joined him to go see the “not so fabulous Shinjuku”. We were joined by another guy outside of Lawsons who is also in the program. We walked around and went through Shinjuku station and came out the other end and thought we were somewhere else, it was loud, brighter and tons more people. Its kinda like when you see the cliché of a big city on TV. The further away from the station we walk, you could see the attitudes of the people change. A lot of people were out working like it was the middle of the day, despite the fact it was about 10 at night; trying to get you to go to their clubs and meet their “girls”. Once we got through that part, we were in quiet and quite dirty streets, most of the people there walked with their heads down, and you could see piles of trash bags sitting outside houses and apartments. The streets were barely lit, it was like this area of the city had fallen asleep and become disconnected. That walk through Shinjuku was definitely worthwhile. When the little adventure concluded, I returned to my room to rest for the big day ahead of me. The orientation itself was alright, it was two days starting the Monday after we arrived. I attended a few seminars and then spent a lot of my free time exploring Tokyo. Last time I went to Tokyo, the only place I really saw was Akihabara and the Narita airport. This time I saw Ebisu, Shinjuku, Akihabara and a few other places. I was really jetlagged most of the orientation, so it was fun but not super exciting, I just didn’t have the energy. However, I did make some good friends at the orientation, and I also learned a few things about teaching. That Wednesday morning, orientation was officially over and everyone headed to their placements. Getting to Niigata from Tokyo wasn’t very hard, we took the bullet train and that was only about an hour and a half at most. After Niigata station, I had another ride to get to my specific placement, the ferry. Once we arrived on the island we were greeted by other current JETs; then it was right into self introductions and paperwork. We went to a City office and met with a superintendent, then went to register at the city as aliens and so on. After that, I was picked up and headed out to my Board of Education and met with some of my coworkers. I also able to do a bit of grocery shopping since there is a small grocery store across from the office. Once I finished shopping, I was taken to my new home and got to drop off my luggage and get ready for a small welcome party with the other JETs.
Since then, I have been going to work Mon-Fri and there have been many Festivals going on all around the island. I hope to get my camera situation worked out and get some nice photos online for you all to see, as well as coherent and interesting posts.
Until next time.

Preparations!

Well, more preparations have been getting taken care of. Yesterday I got a new laptop (macbook baby) which will be my only computer until I get my pc shipped. Also did some clothes shopping for work clothes. When I got home yesterday, I had the JET handbook waiting for me in the mail.
Today I went out and got a pair of indoor shoes, and some dress shoes for when I have to wear a suit(which should not be too much). Other than that, I have been transferring stuff to my portable HD since my windows 7 beta will expire soon; so I have the windows 7 RC ready to install, just got to get few more things done so I don't have to wait until all the programs are reinstalled to get to work. Time is flying by a bit and departure is coming up quick, so I hope to have some more fun with family and friends, and get some work done so I wont have it following me. I'll keep you guys posted.

Small update

Hello everyone, just got a small update on a few things. I sent off the last of my paperwork to the JET desk this past week. I still have been studying and practicing, so I'm glad about that. Yesterday was pretty intense, I did a whole website, start to finish yesterday, I got it up live too.
http://pearlierealty.com is the site, it's not the greatest site ever, but I really feel my HTML and CSS are improving with the practice I have been doing. Once I get some serious layout and photoshop practice, I'll be making really sweet looking sites. But I am happy with the baby steps, it helps me stay focused than trying to practice three things at once and get burned out. I was actually all ready to start on the next subject in my study map, Javascript, but I decided to just wait till I got to Japan before I start on that. So, I'll just check out some CSS videos till I get setup there. I also got a letter from Niigata prefecture this past week, it was just a short letter about packing and that stuff, but I was glad to get something in the mail. Also, I should receive my JET handbook and JET life DVD in the mail this week. Other than that, I will be attened my family reunion in Florida the week before I depart for Japan. So, I'll be leaving that and going straight to LA; hopefully all that stuff goes through smoothly. Anyway, until next time.

A rural life for me.

I know I didn't give much info as to where I would be residing in Japan, besides that it is part of Niigata Prefecture. I decided to say a little more, I will be in a more rural setting; so no big cities or business districts. I also heard there are no trains in the area, only buses for public transportation, so I plan on leasing a car while I am there. One of my former Japanese professors recently told me that Niigata has a very strong dialect. I have done a little research on that, and found some reseources which I hope prove to be helpful. I will try to mix them in my normal Japanese study so that I will be able to decipher some of the dialect when spoken; and possibly impress some locals by using it myself. A few pluses that I thought about living in the rural area are, the possibility of running out in the open, that would be hard to do if there cars, trucks and people all over the place. Also, since it's not a big city, I'll have to speak Japanese more as a lot of the locals may not have the ability to speak or understand English. So hopefully that will improve my speaking and listening quickly.

When I first heard about the area I would be headed, I tried to find some info, like blogs, videos, pictures. It was a little difficult to find more than just general info. Due to that, one of my goals while living there is to take many pictures and put them online (photobucket), and to make videos of the area, events, nature, weather. I am not talking about videos where I would just stand there and talk about stuff, I mean some sweet videos with just the area and all that, and some cool visual effects and nice editing. However, I need to learn how to use some video editing software and learn some after effects to add flavor to the videos; so that wont be for a while, but I'll get on it as soon as I can, and as soon as I get a camera to shoot with. The pics should start flowing as soon as I get there, even though my camera is a little old, 4.0MP, the battery doesn't last like it used to; but it should get the job done until I can find a new one. Would be sweet to get it before departure, so it doesn't die on me in Tokyo.

Moved around and all that mess.

Well, I moved the blog and all that jazz, nothing big. The main point of this post is that I finally got my placement for JET. I will be in Niigata Prefecture. That is a picture of Niigata city to the left, not where I will be living, but that's the nearest big city to where I will be. I will be departing next month, and I got most of the paperwork stuff done. So pretty much it's just, study, get stuff I want to ship together, relax, and try to make some extra money if possible. That's pretty much it, nothing really changed exept the blog design, I changed it for a reason and hopefully, in a few short months you'll see why. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the post.