Pre-emptive JET strike

Well, Saturday was the NY JET pre-departure Orientation. Lots of fun. Lots of information. I met a lot of people from my area already, which is cool. By area I mean the prefectures near me, about 5 or so of them. I was the only one from Ibaraki though. I did however meet Kawarai, who works for the Tokyo Police dept. He was a cool dude, and told me to look him up when he's back in Japan. I may take him up on it.

The little workshops they had were cool. Just good ideas on what to do and what to be careful of. It's gotten me pretty hyped for this whole thing.

Drinking was also in order post-orientation, and man can JET alums and JETs drink! Once again though, good times. I talked to the President of our JETAA, and I will see if I can do some writing for the newsletter. I think it could be fun. We'll see what happens anyway.

I received some pics of the aparto from April, my predecessor today. I'm not sure if I should post them or take my own when I get there. For that to work I need to fix my camera, which I will need to figure out how to do.

Just bought a laptop. DAMN they cost money. Who'd have thought?

Nothing else fun to report. I need to start linking and getting pictures up on this.

Soon we are off

Well, I wanted to do this, so now I am;

Ta da, Rick's Japan blog.

For those unaware of what the deal is, I was lucky enough to be accepted into the JET program and will soon be teaching/ALTing in Japan. From July 30th, 2006 to July 30th, 2007 I'll be working via the Japanese government in Ibaraki-ken. It's about 1 hour North of Tokyo by train. All sorts of exciting. I'm using this to do a couple things;

Update everyone in "Meat-space-America" as to what I am doing.

Log things in here for myself to track my progression in learning about the Japanese culture.

Post Cool Pictures of me being totally awesome, or being an idiot.

Keep in contact with you.

So yeah, there you have it. For now I'm still in prep mode, reviewing my contract, reading JET materials, etc. Sat. is the pre-departure orientation, so I'll let you know how that goes. Other than that, enjoy!

-Me