There’s No Place like Fukushima-Ken

The news of my placement in Japan finally arrived today.  Sean and I will be living in Fukushima-Ken, the third largest Prefecture in Japan, located in the Tohoku region.  Fukushima is North of Tokyo, and though it looks a bit far, it is actually only 60-90 minutes away from Tokyo by Shinkansen (bullet train).  I didn’t request Fukushima, but I’m excited to learn about it and ultimately live there.

Fukushima is large in both size and population.  According to rumor there are going to be 90 new JETs coming to Fukushima this year.  That means they have over 100 JETs working throughout the prefecture.  Below I’ve posted some Fukushima links and pictures taken by current Fukushima ALTs.

Fukushima Wikipedia Article

Official Fukushima Prefecture Website

Mt. Bandai.  It snows throughout Fukushima, but especially in the mountains. Skiing is popular and I can’t wait to see views like this. It’s beautiful!

Tsuruga Castle

Also known as Aizuwakamatsu Castle,the castle was built in 1384 and was the stronghold of multiple factions over the years.  Most notably, the Tokugawa Shogunate who ultimately lost the castle in the Boshin Civil War in 1874.  Also, the cherry blossoms are gorgeous!  I’m excited for my first Hanami (flower viewing).

Tsuruga Castle

A clear view of the Castle.

I’m excited to see my new home Prefecture!  The other JETs from Fukushima seem like a good bunch and appear to host lots of activities and parties.  They have a great website with a very active forum and a large Facebook groups as well.  I’ll have lots of people to go to with questions and concerns!  I hope I hear from my predecessor soon since most of my questions concern my living arrangements and the school I’ll be working in.  I should be hearing from them or my school soon though!

Jen’s JET Interview of Doom!

Okay, it wasn’t really doom. Here’s the scoop!

In preface, I applied to the JET program last November and just had my interview on Friday, February 20th at 9:05am. JET is a teaching abroad program run by the Japanese government and if I was accepted Sean and I would leave for Japan on August 2nd and be there for at least a year. The interview was at the Consulate of Japan’s office in Detroit in the Renaissance Center.

It is a great relief to have the interview out of the way, except now that it’s out of the way my fate lies in the hands of others. I thought my interview went very well and was actually very easy, no trick questions or odd requests. Some JET interviewees have nerve wracking interviews in which they are asked very difficult questions which they then have to defend or are asked to sing or perform or come up with a lesson on the spot … none of which occurred in my interview. My only fear coming out of it is that I’m not going to look any different than all the other interviewees since they asked me such basic questions. But anyway, here’s the story:

I got to the Renaissance Center about an hour and a half before my actual interview because my grandparents convinced me traffic would be a nightmare, which it was not. So I parked easily and figured out exactly where I needed to be way ahead of time. (I even got my parking validated!) My mom went with me just in case we had trouble parking and she needed to just drop me off, but everything went very smoothly. Poor Sean was very sick so couldn’t go with me. The morning of I wasn’t very nervous, even with all the wait time. My mom and I got a coffee and looked around the Ren-Cen until it was time for me to go through the security check point and up to the Consulate’s office. I went up about 30min early and got to watch a video about JET and chat with the other two interviewees waiting with me. They were both from Kalamazoo, so that was cool, and we laughed at the video together because it was mostly an advertisement for the program and we clearly didn’t need anymore convincing to go to Japan!

The girl I was waiting with was called first and shortly after a very quiet Japanese man named Miki came to get me. He brought me to his office where another girl, a former JET was waiting. It was just the two of them interviewing me and it was oddly relaxed because we were all sitting in these comically over stuffed leather chairs! I was sitting facing these huge panoramic windows with a gorgeous view of the Detroit skyline, and it was a bit distracting, but the sun definitely cheered me up. Miki asked me to introduce myself and tell them why I wanted to be a JET, and that was easy peasy. For the rest of the interview the girl, Jessie, asked me most of the questions. In the actual moment it didn’t seem like they asked me a lot and it went by so fast, but once I got out of there I realized my interview lasted a little over half an hour! Much longer than I was expecting … I was asked things like:

What are your biggest concerns about moving to Japan?
What would you do to motivate uninterested students?
What special talents would you bring to your schools?
What would you do in your free time?
What is your biggest flaw?
What three words would your friends use to describe you?
If your JTE asked you to recommend an American book that exemplifies American culture, what would you suggest? (I said something by Mark Twain, I think)
How would you feel if you were asked to sing at a school assembly?
What would you do if your JTE asked you a complex grammar question you didn’t know the answer to?
What would you say if you were asked why English speakers pronounce the word “a” both ay and uh? (That was tricky!)
What the biggest change you expecting? (This question from Miki, I had no idea what he was asking, so I talked about how excited I was to experience a country so different from my own and all the changes it would cause in my life.)
What would you say if a student told you they thought America was dangerous?
What stereotypes about American culture would you try to dispel?
What would you bring with you to dispel homesickness?
Give us an example of an activity you would do in the classroom.
What do you think the role of an ALT is?
Did you have a placement request? (Yes, Shizuoka.)
Why Shizuoka?

There were lots more but I can’t remember everything. After that they asked if I had any questions so I asked how the students and teachers deal with a new JET coming in the middle of the school year and what the chances were of getting to meet my predecessor. I already knew the answers I would probably get but wanted to ask something. Since mine was the first interview of the day I got to pick up a bunch of free stuff, like a few copies of the JET Journal and other pamphlets. I felt bad when they made me take everything because there were only a few copies and they clearly wouldn’t last for the next round of interviews. When I walked back out into the waiting area there were tons of interviewees waiting, at least ten or so. That naturally made me nervous, since they’re all essentially my competition! But I felt confident answering all the questions and didn’t leave hitting myself for saying something ridiculous or getting flustered, so I don’t have any regrets!

I’ll hear the final results sometime at the end of March/beginning of April. At that time they’ll basically tell me if I’m on the short list, meaning I got in and am just waiting for placement, if I’m on the alternate list, meaning I could go if other people drop out or there is more room, or if I’ve been declined and then it’s game over. I expect all of you to be praying for me or at least doing something supportive, I need good vibes!

JET Program Status Notification!

As most of you know, I’ve been waiting insanely anxiously to hear back about my JET status. Basically, I was waiting to be told if all my dreams were about to come true and all my hard work was paying off OR if my life was going to be put on hold for another year of minimum wage work in Kalamazoo. The JET results were said to be emailed out in early April, and other than that I had no real idea when I would hear. So as of April 1st I stalked my email like mad … and by April 6th I had my email permanently open and spent most of my time staring at it, waiting for something to appear. Tuesday, April 7th was no different and by 4:30pm I still had no word. At 4:33 I was forced to turn off my computer at work and walk home. Upon getting home I pretty much threw my things down by the door and went to turn my laptop on. After waiting for it to boot and logging in to my email … IT WAS THERE. It had arrived at 4:46pm while I was still walking home. “JET Program Status Notification” I didn’t waste a second opening, as nervous as I was, and the first thing I saw was “It is our great pleasure to inform you that you have successfully passed the second stage of the screening process for the 2009 Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program.” I read through the rest of the paragraph as quickly as possible to ensure myself that it was true. I made it! I was totally in! I wasn’t even an alternate, I was 100% IN and practically on my way! For the next few minutes I just kept repeating “Omigosh omigosh omigosh” and jumping around the apartment. I called my house, but no one was home, so I went on to call all the members of my family one by one. I don’t think everyone knows about it yet … but I’m working on spreading the word! So, my new wait is to hear where I’ll be placed in Japan. I requested Shizuoka and Saitama but would be happy anywhere, I’m just so excited to go! We’ll be flying out of Detroit on August 1st and are planning a going away party sometime in late June/early July, so I’ll have more details about that later. I can’t believe this is all happening! Now I just have to do a million things to prepare to move to Asia in four months … oi!