very overdue update (aka i'm a lazy person)

Oh gosh, it's been about 3 months since I've last visited my own blog (let alone written an entry) that Chrome doesn't even remember the URL any more! I need to step up my game, because I have a lot of backlogs to catch up on! Here's a quick update just to let everyone (read: myself and maybe the random stranger that somehow stumbled into here — hello!) know that I'm still perfectly fine and alive, and that I haven't been eaten by any strange Japanese mythical creatures (yet).

There's only 3 days until Christmas, (can you believe it?! Because I can't! Especially with the non-festivity that occurs in Japan) and I'm here, still at work, typing away. My last day of school is on the 24^th, which means I've almost finished teaching my first semester! I remember feeling completely out of the loop when I first arrived back in August — actually, I still feel out of the loop all the time, but I guess that comes with being a foreigner in a very un-multicultural society (more on this another time).

I'm actually scheduled to "work" (I use this term very loosely on days during the kids' holidays, because well, it's mostly just down time in my case) on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, but I've taken annual leave for 2 reasons: 1) I am not "working" on Christmas Day, and 2) I'll be going to Singapore and Malaysia! With the New Year's holiday we're entitled to, on top of weekends and a couple of days of alternate leave that I've accumulated over the past 4 months, I only had to take one day of annual to get a total of 12 days on holiday! (If you count the days I'm flying as well).  

In preparation, I've… actually done nothing besides booking a hair appointment for tomorrow (gotta look decent in my photos, yes?). I haven't even started packing, and knowing me, I will end up stressing during the last few hours before I have to head towards the airport. My flight is at 9.30am (on Christmas Day — I better be feasting like a king on the plane), and my plan is to take the very first train at around 5am towards Kansai International Airport, so there will be no sleep for me prior. I also have a 忘年会 (bounenkai, an end of year party/dinner) with one of my schools on the night of the 24^th, so let's hope I hold up okay! I had one just last Friday with my teachers from another school, and the shit (excuse my French, but there is no better word to describe it) that teachers talk about when students are not within the vicinity is hilarious. Great night (besides the insane ￥6,000 / $65 I had to fork over), would totally do again.

This post is already longer than I had expected it to be, and I'm not even finished yet! Proves that when I'm not lazy or procrastinating (which is very rare, sad to say), I am capable of throwing together words on the screen for some bored and lonely person to read (I don't mean you, I mean myself when I'm going through my own posts years later and wondering what kind of strange things were going in my head). To end it off, (and as a reminder to myself), here are the blog posts that I need to catch up on, even if just to remember the awesome time I had:

• Koya-san / Hyogo / Kyoto-Osaka / Thanksgiving-Shingu trip
•  My Halloween / Christmas lessons (aka games that the kids played)
• New beauty purchases
• Taiko experience
• …and I'm drawing a blank, but I’m sure there was/will be something!

This shall be all for now, it's pass my contracting hours and I'm ready to go home (and do nothing as per usual). 

JET: connected to the world again...

I finally have internet! It's taken a long time (just like everything else in Japan — opening a bank account, buying a cellphone, sorting out rubbish...) but I am now finally connected to the rest of the world on my laptop rather than on my phone with a mere 7GB data limit.

It's been 3 week since my last update, and while a lot hasn't happened yet, I feel like a lot has happened. I lived in Japan 3 years ago for 5 months during a one semester university exchange programme, so not all things are a complete surprise to me. However, while there are certain aspects that I got used to very quickly (food, living arrangements, biking everywhere), work life has been the hardest to adjust to. Unlike before on a student visa, I am now a government employee. Being a teacher is so drastically different to my previous job in a call centre for an insurance company... it's going to take a while to fully feel comfortable in these indoor shoes of mine. (See what I did there?) 

Everyone who participates in the JET Programme ends up in a different situation — since we are placed in different prefectures, hired by different organisations, teach a wide range of school levels, encounter different people... and so on and so forth. For the record, here's my situation, in a nutshell:

• My placement is probably between rural and semi-rural — Yuasa-cho is a small town of around 12,000 people, surrounded by mountains; rice fields; and mikan fields. 
• I teach exclusively at elementary and I'm the ALT (assistant language teacher) for 3 different schools.
• My biggest school has 400+ students, while my smallest school has 32 students.
• At my 2 smaller schools I teach grades 1-6, and at my biggest school I only teach grades 5 & 6.
• Despite my job title being the "ALT", I plan all of my classes, and conduct them on my own. Team teaching doesn't happen often in my situation.
• I'm not allowed to drive during work hours, so I bike everywhere — depending on the school I am going to, it can take me between 10-30 minutes. And yes, I have to bike in the rain.
• I live in a one-room mansion, which seems to be rather uncommon for a semi-rural placement. Most JETs I know live in a tatami style room with a separate living space, and a bigger kitchen/bathroom.
• I encounter bugs more than I would like to (cockroach count so far: 12. That's more than I've see in my whole life in NZ... I also believe that insects in Japan are on steroids — they are massive and cockroaches can fly). And I don't even live in the mountainous area...
• My BoE (Board of Education) furnished my apartment for me with the main essential items. I only had to purchase items that I deemed essential, but not my BoE (hair dryer, blender, etc).
• Although my town is relatively small and I'm about an hour away from Wakayama city, it only takes me around 2 hours to get to Osaka. It may not be cheap, but placement wise I am very happy!　

And that's it really (so far)! I'm really hoping to get back into blogging on a regular basis — and now that I have internet, there's no excuse not to blog.

(Feel free to pester me if I don't!)

small update

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since my last update (read: April, oops) — I'm still here, I swear! Life has been a little crazy in the past couple of months, but I now finally have some time to blog. (And by that, I mean I have nothing else to do). Recently, I quit my contact centre job, and moved overseas to Japan to start my teaching career (sort of).

I did it through the JET Programme.

The purpose of the programme is to promote international exchange between Japan and other countries, and they do this by employing foreigners from overseas. (You can read more about it here). I've been wanting to do this ever since I first heard about it in high school (exerpt from my Statement of Purpose, much?) and now I'm finally here after about 7 years. It was an extremely long process — from application to interview, waiting for acceptance, placement, and more waiting... and while I can't exactly say if it's worth it or not yet, I now have another thing to cross off my non-existant bucket list!

I've been placed in a small town called Yuasa in Wakayama as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher). I only arrived yesterday after being in Tokyo for a 2 day orientation, and I'm here at the Board of Education (my contracting organsation), typing away. It's the summer holidays so there are no classes until the 25th, but since I'm being paid by the government, I physically have to be at the BoE (or one of the schools), with nothing to do. It's a little silly in my opinion, but at least I can use this time to work on some lesson plans, study Japanese, and blog a litte.

While I intended for this for be primarily a beauty blog, it's taken a very different direction. I'll definitely continue my reviews once I've settled in a bit more, but for now, we'll see how it goes!