03/15/2010: "An update from the land of the rising sun"

Hey.. here I am, actually updating in a reasonable period of time! Figured I should update with more reasonable "What's Jason been up to?" stuff rather than leave you all (all 2.5 of you) with car crashing and such.

What, exactly, have I been up to? Well, that's a pretty good question. When I look back on the past months, I'm inclined to say "not a whole lot" because, frankly, my life is pretty much a blur of teaching and studying on the weekdays, then studying further on the weekends. But when I look back at my photos, apparently I've been up to a bit more than that.

I guess the most important (and drastic) detail is that I've decided that though I'll still be applying for US grad schools for 2011, I'm focusing a lot of my energies on going to graduate school here in Japan. It's for several reasons, really. Citing the current slump in the US economy is overdone, but in my case it means that universities are not only dealing with higher application rates, but it also means there's less student/financial aid to go around. A serious concern. Also, it's actually cheaper for me to attend graduate school in Japan than to pay out-of-state tuition stateside. Going back to Arizona isn't a possibility (both for academic as well as personal reasons), so out-of-state is my only choice. Finally, if I'm going to be studying Japanese for my Master's (yes, I know.. I'm pretty intent on being unemployable), Japan seems like a good choice. I'll let you know how that all pans out, though. It does mean, however, that I really must study Japanese. Hard.

Other than that? I'm going to Taiwan for a week in April ('Golden Week' holidays here in Japan), which should be a lot of fun. Never been there and I've got some friends to visit, so it should be a pretty awesome experience. It's still pretty far out, though, so I'm not really planning much for it yet. I can't say I know really any Chinese, but luckily my friend will be free for most of the time I'm there, and if worse comes to worse, I can survive off of English (taught from elementary school there) and Japanese (huge tourism industry). Wish me luck!

Back here in Japan, life's going all right. My students are all really nice, and the schedule isn't too bad. I'm still continuing with calligraphy, and do that twice a month, though I can't exactly say I've been improving. The funny thing is that each lesson I go in, work on four characters, and within the 2 hour period, I finally somehow manage to master them. Then two weeks later, I come back and start all over, only to find out that once more I write these new characters like an epileptic monkey. It's a pretty good experience overall, though, so even if frustrating I'm glad I've kept up with it.

As per usual, I would pontificate a bit and ramble on introspectively about life, things, and stuff that's been going on, but it's already a bit long. I'll leave that for next time, so we can hear more about the more daily stuff. But hey, at least you're up to date now, right?

I'm gonna try to get some sleep (can't sleep lately.. really annoying) and then ostensibly teach some people some English tomorrow.

By the way, there are pictures located under "More..." at the bottom of this entry. Check 'em out!


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My Halloween costume for my Elementary School class


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Dr. Jason, on call and treating an acute case of Engrish!


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After buying 150+ doughnuts over the course of a year, this was my grand prize that I redeemed my points for. My very own Pon De Lion mascot! HA!


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The high school I teach at has a program where once a year the graduating seniors go to a local elementary school and teach a class to the kids. I went along with them to ease the class along, and we took a picture after playing with the kids during recess. I had a chance to actually eat school lunch with the kids (we ate fried whale!), and answer some questions.
It was a great experience. And I was in 4 newspapers and the nightly news to boot. YAY!
Jason