Geneva Marie (Niigata-ken, 2008-09) grew up all over the U.S. but if asked will tell you she’s from Minneapolis, MN . JET Lag will recount Geneva’s experiences and thoughts as she prepares to leave the comfortable womb of her JET life and figure out her next move.
It’s been an entire month since my last JETLag post! I had an entire week of birthday activities, I did some much-needed traveling, and soon after I was…sickety, sick, SICK! Needless to say -I’m playing catch-up.
It’s no surprise. I was getting off too easy. Nearly two months with nary a cough, sniffle, or sneeze. I knew it wouldn’t last, especially given my bill of health in Japan.
I had spent nearly all winter ill. Like, totally illin’, but not in that Beastie Boys kind of way. I was told that it was probably due to the fact that I was teaching little kids for the first time. Either that, or because the whole “no heat situation” in indoor places OR the worst case scenario: there was killer mold hiding in the apartment somewhere. Whatever the case, I was sicker than I’ve ever been in my life. I got the flu which is pretty normal for the winter season just about anywhere, but I had gone out of my way to get a flu shot every winter in America for about the last five years or so. I had forgotten how freaky the flu really is: the sweating, the puking, the hallucinations. All experienced alone, in a cold apartment without a kind hand to wipe the sweat from my brow.
In any case, at least it wasn’t Read More
JetWit Blog Beat: Isshoni London by Vanessa Villalobos
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Just learned about a terrific blog and resource for UK-oriented JET alums called Isshoni London (http://www.isshonilondon.co.uk/), “the Gateway to Japanese London.” And the best part is it’s written by JET alum Vanessa Villalobos who is also the Communications Officer for JETAA UK.
The site include:
As well as listing of evens covering everything from a Japanese/English meetup picnic in Greenwich to an Okinawa festival to a manga signing event.
You can also follow Isshoni London on Twitter (http://twitter.com/IsshoniVanessa), and Vanessa helpfully includes a list of the “Top Japan-related people to follow on Twitter.”
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Miguel Gervais (Saitama-ken, Fukaya City, 2000-03) founded and runs the M.L.C.英会話 (eikaiwa) school in Fukaya City, Saitama-ken which currently teaches approximately 45-50 students. He is originally from Canada and was kind enough to write this article in response to a JetWit request to share his career experience.
Any other JET alums interested in sharing their own career advice, experience and perspectives are encouraged to e-mail your article idea to Steven at jetwit [at] jetwit [dot] com.
Having a Job is Irresponsible
My friend Jack is a fine, upstanding person and a great teacher. He’s been in Japan for untold years, had a job that he liked well enough and is blessed with a wonderful family. Unfortunately, the college that had hired him for the past 10 years or so suddenly refused to renew his yearly contract. In their magnanimity, they told him this one month before he was due to start the new school year. Obviously, this was much too late to find another job.
Jack is a great teacher. He is a valuable asset… and yet he is now unemployed and in rather desperate straits. But things could have been even worse… he could have been forced to leave Japan, just like untold numbers of other teachers after the NOVA debacle. Luckily, he is on a spousal visa and was spared this final humiliation.
Don’t let this happen to you! Life-time employment has never been in the cards for foreign teachers in Japan. Unless you are Read More
Sushi and Sake: JET alum columns
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Elizabeth White (Toyama-ken, 1995-98), the Media Coordinator for JETAA Southern California, has been helping Sushi & Sake magazine collect writing from JET alums for the last few years.
Here’s a link to the JET alum writing on their site, including the latest column by Devon Brown (Tokyo-ken, 2002-04) titled “Taking One for the Team.”
And here are links to columns from past issues:
BACK ISSUES – JET Alumni Association
2008 Issues: December • June • May • April • March • February • January
2007 Issues: December • November • October • September • August • July • June • May • April • March
For anyone interested in contributing to future issues of Sushi & Sake, please feel free to contact Elizabeth via e-mail.
JETSites: Frugalista Japan
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Just came across this interesting blog called Frugalista Japan (http://www.frugalistajapan.com): Money saving tips and ideas for foreigners in Japan! They have a post on something I’d never even considered before but which sounds pretty useful: How to Check Your Credit Score in Japan.
Has anyone else come across this blog before? I know there are a number of similar kinds of useful sites in the U.S. such as Bargain Babe. But this is the first I’ve heard of an English-language one in Japan. Are there others out there?
JETAA NY Webmaster Lee-Sean Huang (Oita-ken, 2003-06) is settling into his summer internship at Creative Commons in San Francisco and is working on a site called OpenEd that will act as a kind of portal for the open education community.
Lee-Sean suggested that the JET community, which already does a lot to share their lesson plans and ESL games, might be a good group to engage on OpenEd site.
Lee-Sean has started a a preliminary Wiki page and says he would welcome any input as well as more links to relevant resources. Since the site is a wiki, anyone can create an account and edit the site.
http://opened.creativecommons.org/OER_for_JET_Programme_Participants
Event: SWET Summer Party
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The Society of Writers, Editors, and Translators presents:
The SWET Summer Party!
Event: SWET Summer Party
What: Club Party
Host: Society of Writers, Editors, and Translators (SWET)
Start Time: Sunday, July 26 at 1:00pm
End Time: Sunday, July 26 at 4:00pm
Where: Koishikawa Korakuen Garden, Kantokutei Hiroma
Click here to see more details and to RSVP.
Event: Children’s book illustrators gather for Bologna Children’s Book Fair (Tokyo)
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Author Suzanne Kamata (Tokushima-ken, 1988-90) who also serves as the Publicity Assistant for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, shared the following:
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators presents
Creative Exchange: The Bologna Experience with Ayano Imai, Kiyo Tanaka and Shimako Okamura
Come join illustrators Ayano Imai and Kiyo Tanaka plus designer/illustrator Shimako Okamura as they share their experiences at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the most important global event in the children’s publishing industry. Included in the topics shared at this exchange of ideas and information will be first-hand experiences of being selected for the Illustrators Exhibition, opportunities that resulted from attending the fair, and more. Visit the Bologna Book Fair site (www.bookfair.bolognafiere.it) before this event, and bring along all your questions and ideas about submitting to the exhibition and promoting your work at the book fair.
Time: Saturday, July 11, 9:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Place: Tokyo Women’s Plaza, Conference Room 1
5-53-67 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo (by the Children’s Castle and United Nations University) For a map see www.scbwi.jp/map.htm
Fee: SCBWI members 1,000 yen; non-members 1,500 yen
This event will be in English and Japanese.
Hello! I’m Kelly – RSS feed fiend and fellow former Iwate ALT (indeed, just like the Blog Beat’s own Crystal Wong!). Fret not, Crystal has not forsaken the JET blogosphere. There are just so many blogs to keep up with that I have offered to lend her a hand on occasion.
Now to get on to the goods – more new blogs than you can shake a stick at!
* A favorite blog of mine and one that I personally recommended for the blog roll is Japandra. This little treasure-trove of a blog is brought to you by Sandra, a NY expat and JET alum currently living in Tokyo, who has keen eye for those little irregular hilarities which sneak into the Japanese landscape. What are you waiting for? That fuzzy natsukashii “Haha, only in Japan!” feeling is just a click away…
* Sean Sakamoto of I’d Rather Be in Japan lives it up in the wild and wondrous beauty of Gifu. In one of his most recent posts he brings the forest to us in an excellent home-made video series on how to harvest, prepare, and enjoy eating…bamboo!
* Next up is Jason’s Adventures in Rural Japan (aka Shimane). Although Jason is currently packing up to return to the U.S., his blog is a great place to peruse his selection of the past year’s omoshiroi Japanese YouTube videos.
* Are you a prospective JET itching to find more information about the JET teaching experience in rural areas? If so (or even if not!), check out Mel’s Adventures in Japan.
* Take some time to enjoy the comedic writing style of Steve Rogers, a lover of all things list-worthy (he even writes lists… about lists!), who does very well keeping his sense of humor while enduring Northern Tohoku Exposure.
* D. Freeman – photographer, web guru, and writer – takes his readers on a myriad of viral-worthy adventures. Check his site to find out what is the What-What on the interweb today.
* Finally, we would like to introduce another successful JET writer Christy Burne (Hyogo-ken) who has just been given the first Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices book award, an award that aims to celebrate cultural diversity in children’s literature. Her book, Takeshita Demons, will be published next year and is based on the adventures of a Japanese schoolgirl named Miku. Be sure to keep up with all the exciting developments for Christy!
Is there anyone out there in the JETAA-sphere facing financial difficulties, considering bankruptcy, worrying about foreclosure?
If so, feel free to e-mail your questions to me at jetwit [at] jetwit [dot] com.
I’m no longer a practicing bankruptcy lawyer, but I work in the bankruptcy world (see, e.g., the Bankruptcy Bill cartoon) and figured I could at least try to help out and get answers to any questions JET alums and Friends of JET out there might have. I might even be able to recommend a good lawyer for you, depending where you live.
I’ll keep all of your information confidential. However, if you give me permission, I would like to anonymously post your question and the eventual response on JetWit for the benefit of other readers.
Lastly, for your entertainment, here’s a post about an engaging blog titled “Love in the Time of Foreclosure” by a writer who is going through foreclosure with her husband. In a lot of ways, it’s more about love than about foreclosure, and kind of captures the zeitgeist of the times in which we’re living.
Japan Fix: South Carolina
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Note: This is the second in what JetWit hopes will grow into a series of “Japan Fix” articles. How do you get your Japan fix wherever you live? Write it down and send it to JetWit for the entertainment and benefit of the JET alum community.
Japan Fix: South Carolina
By Daniel J. Stone (Saitama-ken, 2004-07), JETAA South Carolina Subchapter Rep
After spending seven years In San Diego and Los Angeles followed by three years in the metro Tokyo area, the decision to return to my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina with my wife who hails from Tokyo was a bit naïve when I look back to when we first returned to “America’s Bible Belt” in 2007.
Despite the geographic location, demographics and the overall facts that South Carolina is a small and rural state, one can get their “Japan Fix”, if they know where to look.
CULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS
The International Center of the Upstate (ICU), located at the Greenville City Hall building, is a non-profit organization devoted to promoting cross-cultural understanding among local and international residents of Upstate South Carolina. It was here where my wife and I went to learn of where to go and what to do in the area’s international community. One of the first things I did was volunteer at ICU’s English conversation group where a group of Japanese spouses attended the weekly session.
Another group which was helpful was the Japan America Association of South Carolina based in Greenville. Through this group I was able to network with Japanese expatriates working at various companies in the area and like-minded Americans.
Lastly, there is the good ‘ol JETAA group based in Atlanta. It was through here that I met other JET alums in the area.
GROCERY & FOOD SHOPPING
The Tanpopo, aka “Dandelion”, located at the corner of Pelham Road and Highway 14 is a Read More
Another good post from Greg at TheDigitalists.com, this one on why Twitter and Facebook are effective for small businesses, but not yet for large companies. And what they might want to do about it.
http://thedigitalists.com/2009/06/12/social-networks-missed-opportunity/#comment-205
(Also references the really yummy Salted Caramel Pretzel ice cream at General Greene’s in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn.)
Wide Island View: The latest from Hiroshima JET-land
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Gail Cetnar Meadows says there are some great new stories now posted on the Wide Island View… Takarazuka theater, Traveling to South Korea, Nikujaga recipe. Check it out!
The Wide Island View is the kakkouii online newsletter for AJET Hiroshima-ken, started by current JETs Gail Cetnar Meadows and Joshua Zimmerman.
Roland Kelts column on conversation with Haruki Murakami
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Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica, has a short “JapanamericanEyes” column posted on Trannet.co.jp titled “Surfacing with Strength: Haruki Murakami at 60.”
JET-linked book event in Seattle
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Via JETAA Pacific Northwest:
“The book itself is a fine work of art, with a gorgeous, embossed cover, rice paper-thin pages, and textured paper inserts with illustrations that offer clues to Zack’s fate — a triumphant kick in the pants for anyone who doubts the future of paper-and-ink books.” — NPR
