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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n