Comments (1) I thought I would take some time out and write a bit about how my Japanese has come and where I hope it will go. I thought I’d also talk about what I’ve found that works when it comes to studying Japanese and what hasn’t. Well, without further ado, let’s go!
Continue reading 'My Progress in Japanese Halfway Through the Year'»
This past week has been one of adjustment – it’s been a long while since I last went to classes at a college level. Like I mentioned in my last post, I last went to classes last fall semester at UMaine, about four months ago. Now I’ve gotten my schedule all worked out and I feel like it won’t take long for me to get back into the swing of things. I’ll talk a bit about my classes, and then about the weekend, which was exceptionally fun – there was a welcome party for the new foreign students and then rafting with the club I just joined, the adventure club, or tanken-bu.
Hirosaki 08-09
| 
adventure club, aikido, classes, clubs, Iwaki-gawa, Iwaki-san, Japan, Japanese, Maine, party, UMaine, video
All the preparations are made, all the packing is nearly done – yes, I’m about ready to finally leave. After all the forms, research, studying and dreaming, it is about to become reality. In less than twenty-four hours, I will be on a jet plane off to Hirosaki, where I will be speding five months in the Land of the Rising Sun. I must say now that I feel a mixture of excitement, nerves and apprehension. But on the whole, I couldn’t be more ready to leave. You can be sure that this blog is ready to now go prime-time. I will be posting much more frequently (as soon as I’m settled in) and hopefully posting different media, like video. Look forward to it!
I’ve had a pretty uneventful final week. Mostly it was spent spending time with my friends and saying goodbye. Last weekend was especially hard, because I had to say goodbye to my indescribably wonderful girlfriend, Zoe. The above photo was taken while hanging out in the dorms up at UMaine. I’m sure we will both be missing each other lots, but we’ve already discussed plans for her and possibly my family to come out to visit in August. Hopefully by that point I’ll have learned my way around a bit, and I’ll be able to give them a great experience in Japan. :)
This will probably be my final post until I touch down in Hirosaki. But I will certainly be twittering. Follow along with my Twitter widget to the right, or go to this page here. Next time I write here, it will be on Japan time. Later!
I’m really sorry about the long blackout in posting. After I finished working, I’ve been more busy with things than I imagined. Mainly, I’ve been studying Japanese, but as you’ll see from this post there has been a couple other big things that I’ve done. Who knew that when your time gets freed up, you just become all the more busy with everything you’ve been wanting to do for a while? I’ll start from the beginning I suppose.
About a week and a half ago now I quit my job at the factory. I worked overtime that week to make some last-minute cash, but at the end of the day I gladly said “good riddance!”. That job had to be the most menial and most boring I’ve ever had. Can’t say I can complain too much, because I did make some decent money, but I certainly won’t recommend for anyone to work there.
So for the past few weeks, I’ve been just sticking to working at Burger King. Since I’ve been working part-time, it has practically been like being on vacation. It was fortunate, too, that I ended working at the factory when I did, because I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to meet with the Hirosaki students who come to UMaine every spring! I did this last year as well, and it was a big motivating factor for me to go apply for Hirosaki the following semester.
Zoe and I made the trip up to Orono on March 6th. The drive went well – we got there with time to spare. When the students showed up it was just like I remembered from last year. They came out into the student union by the information desk, where we were separated up to act as conversation groups. Like last year, I was very impressed with the students’ skills in English. All of them spoke with a good command of the language, but occasionally they had to bust out the denshi-jisho to make things easier. They drew out a map of Hirosaki University’s layout and we discussed the best places around the school to get food. We also got on the topic of music and I got some recommendations from them. Among their favorite artists were Polysics, Hi-STANDARD, Namie Amuro and the Radwimps. That’s quite a broad range of music, from electronic to pop to punk rock. I didn’t get as much time to get to know them all this time around as I did last year since we only met the one time, but it was time well spent. I really enjoyed talking to the Hirosaki students here at home, so I can only hope that means that I will enjoy it as much when I go over there in a couple weeks. :)
The following Monday, Zoe and I made another trip. This time, we went down to Boston for the day to apply for my visa, because that is where the closest Japanese consulate is. I recieved the final documents from Hirosaki the week before, detailing the housing situation and some forms I needed to fill out and fax back to them. Also included was my “Certificate of Eligibilty,” which is bascially a piece of paper from the Japanese government saying that they recommend me for a student visa. With this piece of paper and a filled-out form in tow, Zoe and I showed up to the Federal Reserve Bank building just outside of South Station, were we took the bus into Boston to. It was pretty amusing, too when we arrived. I wasn’t sure if we’d need to take the subway, so I asked one of the people at an information desk for help. When I showed her the Google map I printed out, she said, “it’s right upstairs.” Indeed, it was literally across the street from South Station. Shows how well I know Boston’s streets. :P
Once we got into the Federal Reserve, we took the elevator up, up, up until we got to the 14th floor (this was quite the tall building). Upon stepping off the elevator, the Japanese consulate was right there in our faces. I assume the consulate took up the entire floor because of that, but not much was accessible to the average visitor. There were signs everywhere saying that photography wasn’t allowed, which was too bad because I wanted to take some shots for the blog here. The decor of the place was very much similar to that of a travel agency, except that it was all Japanese-themed with many of the posters that adorned the wall were written in Japanese. The whole process of applying for my visa took literally a minute. Because I had printed and filled out the separate visa application required, I was all set to go. They said it would take three days to process, so I should be getting my visa any time now.
We spent the rest of the day just walking around the downtown and checking out some stores. We went by the Massachusetts State House, too. Outside, saw this great sign:
With all this stuff going on lately with state politicians and “call girls,” I think that picture is both funny and ironic. Not just some hookers, but all hookers admitted!
I’m sorry if I just glossed over things in this post, but I haven’t been good about keeping up with the updating and I don’t want to write a book. XD I hope that I can write more frequently, as always. As it stands, I’m not in Japan yet, so I don’t have anything terribly exciting to write about except the minuate of the preparation process. If that interests you, all the more power to you – I hope this site is a help to everyone who is considering studying abroad. But if you are here to read about traveling in Japan, just give it a few more weeks. Until next time!
Making the decision to study abroad is one that should not be made without at least a bit of foresight. The reason I say this is, you will spend a good semester solid worrying about forms and applications, which will hound you right down to the last day before you go back home for the break. This is no lie, as it is right now Thursday evening and I have to get not just one but two complete forms back to the Office of International Programs. If I had to venture a guess about what uses the most paper, I’d say TP manufacturers, the U.S. Federal Reserve and International Program offices at colleges across the wide world. But in all seriousness, there is quite a bit to keep track of, and a bit of diligence on your part can ensure that everything goes smoothly.
So why would someone want to do this? Get out of their comfort zone, go to a completely foreign land where they don’t know anyone, and then stay there for several months? Well, there are a couple of reasons. I guess I should go back to high school to really start this off.
Well, this is the very first post on this site, so I suppose introductions are in order. My name is Joe Kester and I am a student at the University of Maine, who so happens to have a love of Japan and the Japanese language. It was this great interest of mine that lead me to pursue a study abroad program there, which I will be departing for in March of 2008. I recently was accepted, so I figured I would set up a site where I could document what transpires over the next few months in great detail.
I’m going to cut this short for now, but don’t worry! Over the next few days, I will have posts up about my experience applying for study abroad and some pointers for beginning Japanese language students. Until then!
Joe In Japan by Joe Kester is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Joe In Japan is powered by WordPress
Panorama theme by Themocracy
