February 20th, 2008

Lots of good stuff has been going on in the past couple days related to me an Japan! It’s getting exiting for me, as I only have a month or so left to go before. Being such, I’m starting to feel it creeping up on me. I’m getting more and more into Japan-mode, ready to pounce on those preparations for departure! Today, I took my first step towards that by informing the factory that I’m currently working at to get some last minute money that next week will be my last. That means that I will have the entirety of March to study Japanese and make my final arraignments. It will be study-study-study like a madman for me! :) I really want to be as proficient and at the top of my Japanese game when I go to leave. I’m going to try and get ahold of some of my Japanese acquaintances up at school, too, and see if I can do some Skype conversations. I really enjoyed practicing speaking with Hitomi-san, a graduate student at UMaine, while I was taking classes last semester. My comfort level with Japanese skyrocketed in a scant few weeks. For anyone studying Japanese, don’t be afraid to approach people to practice conversation. You probably do know a lot more than you think you do.

Also, if that wasn’t enough, some exiting news for the site! Edward Chmura, who I mentioned in my post on Japan-related podcasts, mentioned me on his show and linked to this site this past week. Edward, if you are reading, I am once again greatly humbled that you took the time to notice and mention my site on the show. I’m glad that my comments did not go unappreciated. :)

Finally, my book “Remembering the Kanji” came today from Amazon. I will be delving into this book later tonight probably after dinner and of course, throughout the weeks ahead. Time to learn some kanji!

[Photo by pats0n, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “End of One Era, Start of a New One”

gapzi11a Says:

You have a sharp looking site here Joe. I arrived here via the Japan Talk podcast. I’m excited for you and maybe a little jealous. I’m looking forward to visiting Japan vicariously through you over the next year. Good luck!

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