Guess what! I want to listen to all the awesome new
music I got thanks to my sistuz. (For reference I'm going to list it here:
David Crowder*Band - Church Music; Innerpartysystem; Eisley - The Valley; Avril
Lavigne - Goodbye Lullaby; she - Orion) Of course, what better way to listen to
music than by sittin' down to write off a year's worth of life? That said, get
ready folks. This is gonna be another of the biggies so hanker down with your
favorite warm drink (if you're in a cold place, like my room, for example!) and
enjoy my ramblings!
Now, before I start (what, did you think I’d just
let you off without some more illogical preamble? Have you seen my blog’s name?
I can’t even stop from interrupting even myself! XD) I’m just gonna apologize.
To be sure, this blog and I have had a bit of a relationship. I’ve had it for
several years and it really feels like every time I post something I include
some sort of rant bemoaning how few readers I have or how little I post – two things
that are bound to have some correlation. But, thinking about it with as clear a
head as I can have at the beginning of this brand new year, I’ve always used it
as a personal writing outlet. Such a thing is, at its core, for the benefit of
my own catharsis. Following that, though, is the fact that writing’s natural
progression is communication in some form and it’s from that that stems my
frustration, minor and insignificant as it often is. The apology, then, is to
my reader in being forced to deal with my violent love-hate swing surrounding
this exercise in writing. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but I can get
behind having some impetus in regards to not complaining about audience or
content around this blog.
It makes sense to take this month by month but I’m
not really sure I can recall what happened within those particular time frames
(my memory’s not that good sometimes) so instead I’m just going to kind of wing
it as I try to be as sequential as possible.
In January I was already in the midst of the
application process for JET. I just checked my emails to verify the date and it
appears it was mid-January when I found out I got the interview for JET. As you
may or may not know, in 2008 I first applied to the JET programme and for
whatever reason, I didn’t get to the interview phase of the applications process
so getting it this time was pretty much mind blowing. I’m certain none of you
are strangers to how much I was dying to go to Japan so getting just as far as the
interview made me unfathomably happy. I was still cautiously optimistic because
getting interviewed didn’t exactly mean I was going to Japan. Even then, I was,
for once, confident in my placement. Maru-sensei, one of my favorite teachers
(of all time), had such faith in my ability and prowess as a candidate for JET that
I just knew I could do it.
[Other notable things in January: Not much? Played a ton of games… actually
2011 was a great year in gaming. If I recall correctly, I played through a ton
of really fun/great games this year :D We’ll leave that for another post, if at
all.]
This actually quite seamlessly leads into February,
which is when the interview took place. Don’t recall much happening in
February, to be honest. The interview went pretty well, I thought, and so began
the waiting game. Actually, the waiting game began when I mailed in the
application back in October 2010 when I started the application. The game
clearly consists of a checklist where you have to wait some sort of vague span
of time between each item. I will now proceed to painstakingly delineate said
items and spans of time up to this point and update the list as I go through
the post. (The time in parenthesis is the wait time until the next item)
[X] – January 2011: find out I have the interview with JET (~1 month)
[X] – February 2011: interview in SF (~2.5 months)
March 11, 2011 was when the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami happened. The interview was in late February so I was quite fresh out of it and feeling closer than ever to going to Japan. I still remember being at work and watching videos of people screaming, of the swelling sea coming in, rushing into land and taking with it bikes, cars, boats and buildings. It was honestly frightful. The people that knew I was planning and trying to go to Japan asked me what was going to happen. I didn’t have many answers. I didn’t know whether JET was going to cancel this year’s applications. I heard of at least one JET who was in the Sendai area who died. I did have at least one answer though: I still wanted to go to Japan. Something inside me wanted to be there even then helping however I could.
Time went on and April came and went. I can’t say I recall any particular thing that makes April stand out. Sorry, April! Oh, actually, I take that back. Imogen Heap’s 4th album began in the tail end of March and the first song from it came out in early April. Love, love, love Lifeline and I can’t wait to hear the newest song coming out real soon (she’s doing a song every 3 months). AND – wow, gotta thank my sent e-mails box since it’s really helping this post out – it turns out it was on April 17th that I found out I was on the short list for JET.
[X] – April 17, 2011: get into JET
Lemme just say, I stopped short of exploding right
there in my chair at work when I got the e-mail. Suffice to say, I read it
through a good 3 or 4 times just to make sure I wasn’t misreading it. I then
proceeded to tell my close circle of friends, family and a selection of people.
I would then proceed to tell others as I saw fit. I’m sneaky like that. Wow,
just remembering finding out is putting a huge smile on my face. That moment
for me was the consummation of so many hopes and the beginning of a future I’m
currently living. I’m in the middle of the Japanese country-side staring out
the window of my apartment past the reflection I can’t see on my window. I’m in
this window, this door to the outside that is my current life in this country I’ve
pined for for years. Forgive me for waxing metaphysipoetical.
I love May. 1) It pretty much kicks of with my
birthday on the 2nd – it always sneaks up on me, actually – and 2) it’s
also the beginning of the summer, which is usually a fun season. May was when I
started to put into action plans and efforts for The Big Move to Japan at the
end of July. I also got my iPad in May :D Yes, it still rocks. It’s my Japanese
video game playing companion so I can look stuff up and talk to my friends
while I game. It’s the little things, folks!
June’s when I found out where I was placed for my
stay in Japan: the town of Oda in Shimane prefecture. To be frank, I had no
[insert expletive for color] idea where Oda or even Shimane were. I’d never
heard of the prefecture and quite possibly any part of it. It was a little
daunting to think I’d be living in a place I’d never heard of, even if it did
happen to be in Japan. I remember looking it up in google maps and thinking
something along the lines of “I’m in the middle of nowhere” or “country life… I
hope my body can take it.” Obviously, I was being the classic drama queen I
usually am but still had a positive outlook coz I was going to Japan! [Spoiler
alert: loving it here, wouldn’t trade it.] Seriously though, I was a little
concerned because it is a rural area and I’ve never lived in a rural area but
seeing as I was ready and willing to embrace the unknown by simply going
through with going to Japan, there was [and still is] nothing to be afraid of.
July is when I kicked the preparations for
departure into HIGH GEAR. I had, at this point, 30 days to get ready to fly
2000 or whatever miles to my new home. I wanted/had to reduce the entirety of
my belongings to things that I could throw away, give away, sell or take with
me. I’d like to think I was successful, for the most part. Although there were
some things I ended up not being able to take care of. (SORRY MIKE) Let’s not even
talk about how I spent the whole night before my flight packing. Yes, the whole
night, didn’t sleep a wink. The span from about 6-8AM was the toughest ever to
stay awake through. I seriously could not sit down for too long for fear that I’d
just conk out. In these last few weeks before moving to Japan I:
-
Sold my car
-
Sold my laptop
-
Sold my desktop
-
Bought a new laptop
-
Gave away a ton of clothes/things
-
Sold a bunch of stuff at a garage sale (for stupid
cheap coz I needed to get rid of it)
-
Bought the best jacket I’ve ever owned (shout-out to
Harim, holla!)
-
Had as much pearl milk tea as I could – no regrets!
-
Said goodbye to everyone I was possibly able to and had
probably several too many farewell dinners that I feel guilty I got treated to.
Thank you friends T_T
-
Probably a bunch of other things, it’s all a blur
And this all culminated in…[X] – July 30th, 2011: fly to Japan
(next part coming soon)
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