RenFest

I did a whole lot of homework this weekend, so I earned myself a trip to the Fair. I had fun, I had funnel cake, I had heat stroke. Not really, but I did feel very bad for most of the evening, even though I hydrated. My car is getting it's AC fixed as we speak, so maybe that won't happen anymore. Yay!

Pictures: http://pics.livejournal.com/cailement/gallery/000048gf

Go see them!

Moving along

I've gotten my response that my paperwork arrived at the Consulate, and as I haven't heard anything else, and that's a good thing.

I went to the Consulate General's house on Thursday, for Japanese conversation practice and dinner. I was rusty, but it was fun, met some new people, who I have to email back. I couldn't during my lunch break on Friday, because the school doesn't have Japanese language installed on any of the computers, so I couldn't read her message. Ah well.

For today, I hope to get all of my homework done, so tomorrow I can go to the Ren fest and take pictures to put in an album to bring to Japan. To show my new students what kind of things we do for fun. My first week off school I plan to get a City pass and for $60 (I think) go to the Aquarium, World of Coke, Fernbank, the Zoo, and one other place that I can't remember. All for the pictures and the album and the "this is my city, kids." It should be fun.

I want to go ahead and get all of my things ready to leave, but as I don't even know where I'm going to be, and don't know what grades I'll be working with, this would be silly. The JET message boards are all saying don't bring stuff, you won't use it. But I think this is more along the lines of, don't bring teaching English stuff. I want to bring books (realia, native stuff made for the native speakers of the language that can be used in foreign language education), just for easy things, like Richard Scarry, or Freeyman's books where they take different fruits and veggies and put names on them like numbers, shapes, feelings and what not. It looks neat (to capture the children's attention) and is educational. Weeee.

I also need to buy a laptop, but have heard so many contrasting facts that I'm confused about what I should buy. I'm leaning towards a Macbook Pro, because, with a free download, I can boot in Windows, which I understand, unlike the MacOS, which I can use, but makes no real sense to me. That way I can talk to whatever OS they are running overthere with hopefully no worries. But it would be buying a Mac, which to me is scarry.

Ah well. More thoughts later. (ps: I'm so excited!)

Paperwork {stamp!} Done!

I've filed all of my paperwork, and applied for my new expidited passport. I'm still really upset that I can't find my old one, now I have to start my collection of world stamps again. I'm really hoping to have at least ten in there by the time I have to renew it again, in ten years. That shouldn't be too hard of a goal. And I will hopefully have a friend in China on a study abroad during next summer, while I'm still in Japan, so hopefully I'll be able to just hop across the Sea of Japan and visit him for a weekend or so. In the future I would also like to visit Brazil again, and visit Natalie during her studies abroad in both Spain and Argentina. Italy, Australia, Egypt, England (/Ireland/Scottland), and the Bahamas (again) are all also on my list of "to see" places. I don't quite know where I want to go in Asia, but I figure while I'm over on that side of the world would be a good time to take at least one trip, but not too much travel. I want to see and experience Japan.

But now, I just have to wait for my new shiny electronically tracked passport to come in, and then wait to find out what I have to do for my visa. Weeee. :)

Let us begin!

Hi all! This is Kim, I really don't know how to start one of these, so let's start by saying why I'm doing this.

I'm planning to go to Japan on August 28. To work with the JET Program and help teach children English. I'm on the short-list, and I should be going. Let's all keep our wonderful fingers crossed.

Next with the feelings and whatnot.

I am feeling stressed about getting all of the paperwork to the right people on time, but as soon as I have my passport, that will fly away like a little butterfly, because I have the rest of it done (smiles!)

I'm sure after I surpass that hurdle, I will start to feel anxious about leaving the country for one to five years, but I'm not worried about that yet, as I have the lovely people at JET supporting me, and I work best when I deal with one problem at a time. Weee.

I guess that's all for now. I was recomended to start posting during this pre-Japan phase, so that I'll have all of the wonderful memories to share later, so I'll try to keep up with this much better than my other online journals and whatnot. I figure I'll be really good if I post once a month, and excellent if I get it to once every week or two. Yay, setting goals.

That's all for now, more as it developes!