So after about 3 straight days of packing in Rock Hill (one of which was approximately 14 hours long), donating 3 trash bags of clothes to Schoolhouse Exchange/Goodwill/Cassie, donating a pile of assorted other belongings to Goodwill, and trashing/packing the rest...I filled my car to the brim and headed to Roanoke, where I dropped off some of my stuff for storage, then drove to MD where I spent another day and a half rearranging and getting rid of more stuff, only to h
ave a suitcase that is slightly overweight, and another that is so jammed full of stuff it's probably going to explode, a humungo-purse that weighs a million pounds that may or may not count as my carry-on on the bus, and a miracle called "I'm actually able to bring my guitar as a carry-on".^Run-on sentence? Yes. Accurate verbal representation of the way I've felt for the past few days? Absolutely.
July 31:
Woke up at 6am. Actually a little before as my mom decided to come wake me up about quarter of 6. Not that it mattered, seeing as how I didn't really sleep anyway, on account of stress due to packing, leaving friends, leaving my house, leaving my car, leaving my life as I've known it for the past 2 years at least. Showered, got ready in my businessy, 'real people job' attire, went to metro station, sent MM a text declaring 'No me gusta jobs that require me to wake up at 6am', got to station, went to Starbucks, met MM, exchanged money, cleaned out Currency Exchange of all yen, orientation.
Orientation was actually very informative. Since my interview site was in DC and I lived in South Carolina, I was unable to make most of the Q&A sessions and other useful JET events. We talked about cultural etiquette, cu
lture shock, luggage, lesson plans, drugs are bad, JET alumni associations, getting involved, and got our plane tickets. It actually made me not stress out so much about things. Up until orientation, I really felt like I had no information. My predecessor really wasn't very helpful from that standpoint...it was mostly like pulling teeth trying to figure things out. Unless I wanted to know the location of the nearest McDona
ld's and important things like that (see pictures from previous blog). I had gotten in touch with the other ALT I work with, and he was able to tell me some thiebgs, but overall both of them just seemed kind of busy and not overly excited about their jobs, which kind of worried me. But after today, and talking with JETs from previous years, and actually getting answers and finding out what it's like to be a JET, I think I feel a lot better about it. The main message I got from many of the ALTs was that the experience is really what you make of it. I hope I'm able to get involved and have fun with my students so they don't hate me. They are high schoolers which means they're probably dramatic. I want to find clubs and whatnot that I can be involved in. If there is no Ultimate Frisbee I'm probably going to try to get that started. Best game ever.
lture shock, luggage, lesson plans, drugs are bad, JET alumni associations, getting involved, and got our plane tickets. It actually made me not stress out so much about things. Up until orientation, I really felt like I had no information. My predecessor really wasn't very helpful from that standpoint...it was mostly like pulling teeth trying to figure things out. Unless I wanted to know the location of the nearest McDona
ld's and important things like that (see pictures from previous blog). I had gotten in touch with the other ALT I work with, and he was able to tell me some thiebgs, but overall both of them just seemed kind of busy and not overly excited about their jobs, which kind of worried me. But after today, and talking with JETs from previous years, and actually getting answers and finding out what it's like to be a JET, I think I feel a lot better about it. The main message I got from many of the ALTs was that the experience is really what you make of it. I hope I'm able to get involved and have fun with my students so they don't hate me. They are high schoolers which means they're probably dramatic. I want to find clubs and whatnot that I can be involved in. If there is no Ultimate Frisbee I'm probably going to try to get that started. Best game ever.Basically, I feel better. Although I kinda want the 12+ hour flight to be over. And I kinda don't want to wake up at 6 again, but I guess I have to. On one hand, I can't stand not knowing what's going to happen, but it's pretty cool knowing the next time I go to bed, I'll be in Tokyo:)
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