Way back when I was in elementary school, I remember seeing a washed out old movie (on a reel to reel projector) documenting life in Japan. I think it painted a pretty bleak picture of overcrowding, a strict social order, and a whole bunch of people on bicycles. For some reason, I was really interested. When the opportunity came up to travel there, I took it. It’s been a long time since I sat in that class dreaming of visiting Japan, but now I’m going to do it.
The first thing I did was enroll in a Japanese language class at the local community college. In July of 2002, I read about the JET program – a program that brings young people from all over the world to Japan to teach English to students in their schools. I knew then that this was the chance I was looking for. I was “between careers” at the time, and so I made the decision to pursue it. At the end of July 2003, I’m headed to Japan to see how reality compares with the dream. What follows is a little bit about how I got where I am, and some of the flaming hoops I had to jump through to get there.
I put together this journal to keep people up to date with what I’m doing, but also for my own interest. I look forward to reading back on these notes and writings when I’m older. I thought it would be fun to share this with you, so dig in and enjoy. If you do enjoy reading about what I’m doing, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Next, check out applying for JET.
