Flight Date

I have a flight date: April 11. Holy shit.

But 2 weeks ago I decided this life change wasn't hard enough, and acquired a boyfriend that won't be able to accompany me. Yeah that'll make this more bearable. e_e FTR this wasn't a decision made whilly-nilly, and we're already secure as a couple, but it'll hurt being in vastly different time zones. :(

Mito AET

So... I've officially applied to the Mito/Anaheim AET exchange program. I'm effectively employed. I will leave... the first week of April?

o_________________________________________o;;;;

Pending deadlines...

I'll keep this brief: The JET application deadline is fast approaching, and I still haven't gotten my essay done to satisfactory quality. In fact I had to start from scratch after a current JET ripped it to shreds. @_@

I'm still waiting to hear if I'm still a Go for the Anaheim/Mito exchange, which is the job I realllllly want, and that application's deadline isn't until after JET's. Unfortunately this is causing me to not give my JET application my all and that's partly why my essay is suffering.

I just feel overwhelmed with everything right now, bottom line.

If I give JET my all and I get picked, yet I can still have the job in Mito, I'll feel like I wasted JET's time. Yet if I don't give my all and I can't get the Mito job, I'll for sure have wasted JET's time.
Short of it is that I just need to suck it up and pour everything into JET, just in case. They take thousands of applications, many of which are (hopefully) worse than mine. That's just how it is... right?

*flips university desks*

I'm working on two applications right now.

Only to find out that I'm one unit shy of graduating this semester. This means I'll need to take one last class in the Winter or Spring, and it almost might as well be Spring because either way I won't be "graduated" until June in either case.

This means I probably have to turn down the one job that I'm applying to that is just about being handed to me, because I'd start work in April.

One unit.

One.

And its absence is nowhere in my graduation check except in the little tiny section that reminds you that you need a total of 120 units to graduate. I have all the minimum units in every single section, but because I did so many classes at JC and only 70 units transferred over with me, I AM ONE UNIT SHORT AND HAD NO IDEA UNTIL THIS MONTH.

JET's still on the table...

Rejected.

So... I got rejected from Interac. The letter went to my spam box and thankfully I check that very regularly. It took my breath away to read the declination but I quickly sought out the JET website and saw that the application process hadn't even started yet.

So I'm gathering stuff as we speak. I have nearly 4 weeks to get everything together and mailed out, 4.5 if I want to cut it close (which I don't), so I'll set the deadline on the Friday before it's all due.

I have my Reference writers picked and already asked them. Next step is to write my Statement of Purpose and get that reviewed. I have 3 people lined up to look at it but I'd like one more if I can. I need my physician to fill out a form, which I will have him do at my next appointment.

I then need to fill out the 13 page application, print it out (in triplicate!!!) along with everything else... A total of 13 documents to send off in triplicate. That's a small tree right there.

I'm excited. :D But if God has taught me just one thing, it's that He's in charge and I can only do so much on my own. Every time I get a little cocky I get my dose of humility served to me.

Post Interview

Had the interview yesterday. My friend Yessi came over on Friday to help me prepare, which involved buying new shirts and shoes, and practicing my demo lesson and making sure the timing was right. We went to bed early and woke up at 6am. We were going to be gone all day so I had to make sure the kitties were ok, the house was going to stay cool while we were gone, and finish packing our lunch. Oh, and put make up on since I was going to be recorded.

Poor Yessi had to sit by herself in the lobby for about 5 hours while the 9 of us went through the informational seminar and did our demo lessons. During lunch break we walked around the mall across the street, and then I came back for the one-on-one interview. That was done in a half hour, and at 6:30 we started on our way home. So, that was about a 9 hour day. Poor Yessi was coming down with a cold and the GameBoy battery died; I felt so bad. ;A; I figured we'd be done by 4, somehow.

So, I feel that I did the poorest with the demo lesson of the 9 of us, but I also was the only one that picked the Irregular Verb one. Everyone else did the directions or the dialog, and they had lovely props made up for it, too. Me? No props. Just words. And the Hokey Pokey. Jared did Ants Go Marching One by One, which was better than the Hokey Pokey, activity-wise, but required more vocabulary. We gave each other feedback and I felt like I got the most critique, a lot of which was "open your mouth more". In any case I don't think I did badly, I just wasn't the most stellar.

At any rate, I'm the only one that hasn't graduated yet, so while they'll likely hear back from Tokyo come November, I don't even get my packet sent in until January, and I won't hear about the job until February. But it's a load off my mind in any case. Hard part's done, and I feel I did well enough.

Interview.

Soooo... My interview is the day after tomorrow. Yes, I'm nervous. I have a friend coming over to help me practice my demo lesson and introduction, since I get extremely anxious and I speed-talk when I'm flustered. Speed-talking is bad when teaching English.

We'll be doing that, picking out an outfit, and I'll practice applying makeup in a timely fashion, too, since I have to make an hour-long drive and arrive by 8:30 AM. @_@ I just realized that I don't have much to pack a lunch with, either. D: Maybe I'll pick some stuff up tomorrow...

So, first will be about 2 hours of information, learning about the company. Then I'll take a 20 minute grammar test (as long as they don't ask me what the predicate clause is, I'll be good). Then they'll take my picture for the resume, I'll fill out a personality questionnaire, and finally the video. D8

After that I will wait to have my one-on-one interview. I'm actually really nervous about that since I fail at interviews, but I think I'll get a lot of bonus points for my demo lesson. :3

*deep breath* I got this.

Seminar

My seminar is this weekend. Saturday.

Yes, I'm nervous. Time flew and I don't have a lot of time to practice my demo. I have to keep it under 6 minutes. o________o;;;;

But I can do it. I can. And I will.

Semi-unrelated: I'll be living in Japan in time to see the debut of the new Sailor Moon anime :D

Just a small update.

Changed the fish colors to commemorate 9/11's 11th anniversary. I'll probably leave them these colors for a while.

So, I am in the clear for graduating this semester. Provided I pass all of my courses, but at this point I'm not terribly worried about that anymore. I should be, since I have a tendency to slack off too much if I don't worry, but oh, well.

I believe I have all of my documentation ready (that I can have ready at this point) to mail off to Interac. This includes a signed form, a questionnaire, and my resumé. Later I'll need to mail my passport scan, passport photos, and then my transcripts at the end of the year. I'll double check to make sure I have only those 6 items, but I think that's it. o_o; Kinda cooool.

I got a carpool buddy last week so I will be saving almost $300 in gas this semester. You read that right: $300. $4.05 gallons of gas, 10 gallons a week, 15 weeks.  This carpool buddy is almost slashing my gas costs in half. It's delicious.

Finally, my friend Lost Usagi has landed in Japan this week. She starts school in Waseda University in Tokyo this year. I hope to be able to visit her before she goes back home next summer. Ideally I'll visit her with Janine, but we'll see how all that goes. I will make time for visiting no matter what, but where I get located will affect the frequency of visits. :x Also, Bikky, if you're reading this, you're welcome to come stay at my place on your vacations! :3

Alright, time to get ready for school. Later.

Progress!

Had my phone interview with Kellan on Friday morning, and found out that it was actually part 2; the last phone call was part 1, which accounted for why the Friday phone call was so brief. I was asked a few questions about what I expected from being an ALT, how much money I would be able to save up, and if I was worried about culture shock. He also asked about any teaching experience I'd had. I then asked some questions of my own for peace of mind's sake, and he answered them to my satisfaction. :3

Before I knew it he was talking to me about going to the seminar at the end of September and what I'd need to have prepared for it.

I'd been reading/hearing that people would wait as much as 2 weeks to find out about that, and I got an invite right in the middle of my phone call.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

In other news I'm having a slight hiccup with my graduation requirements for this semester; my professor isn't getting back to me on whether or not I can take a particular class to fulfill my elective requirement. She'd said she would approve it but I would like it in writing, yanno? And she did tell me to e-mail her about it.
The reason for the issue is because I'd basically have to wake up at 4:30 AM to get to school in time for a 10:00 AM class 25 miles away, simply because of traffic in my area and the parking problem at school. Absolutely ridiculous. Unfortunately there are only 2 electives offered this semester that I haven't taken yet, and I need 3 total. In theory I can take a class that's not officially a qualifying class, but I need her approval for it. Here's hoping.

That's all for now!

*edit to add* Squee Janine's applying, too X3 Hopefully they call her :D

Intro

Alright, so... Let's get started. I'll try to keep this blog limited to the objective and leave fangirling and personal stuff out of it as much as possible, unless it somehow applies.
I'm 27, been wanting to teach English in Japan for a few years now. What inspired me was the idea that there are so many Japanese celebrities (musicians, mostly) that are trying to expand to an overseas market and at the very least reach an English-comprehending market. Unfortunately, as some of their lyrics and Tweets suggest, their English isn't that great. So, my ultimate goal is to teach them English. This is an unrealistic goal but it keeps me motivated, and that's what counts. For now I'm starting small, hoping to become an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT).
I've had quite a few roadblocks, lane changes, detours, surge breaks, and delays on the way to what was supposed to have taken only 2 years to achieve once I was decided on what I wanted to do, but now the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight: I will be graduating with a BA in Japanese at the end of this year. Not school year, but calendar year. My birthday present will be a degree and passport. I went from just wanting to continue my education back in 2002, to working to get a certificate in 2007, to wanting to get an AA/AS (I got both Fall 2009), to needing a BA for what I want and getting it at the end of 2012. 10 years of college education. I did change my major twice (Engineering to Photography to Japanese) and dragged my feet for a long time, and I had to sit a semester out during a transfer to CSU. I've had many a great professor along the way, some not so amazing, but mostly amazing. The best ones for the most part I only had for one or two classes, sadly, and every one has wanted me to take more of their classes or thought they'd see me again, only to be disappointed when I'd told them my major wasn't anything related; this was just a GE course for me. Geology 101 was the most recent example: She was absolutely certain that I'd be in her classes next semester, based on my performance in the class. Nope. This was just better than Chemistry and Biology.

Anyway. I started this blog because the journey to Japan is about to start: I applied to an EFL company about a month ago and just the other day have scheduled a phone interview for next Friday morning. If I pass that I get to attend the seminar at the end of September. If not, I'll wait for a few months and apply to another company.

That's the big news so far. o_o;;