Dartboard

Me: Have you read my new post?
Him: Oh yes, the one with the disgusting picture
Me: isn’t that COOL?
Him: sorta…
Him: it’s really gross
Me: i know. i love it.
Him: maybe you should go to med school

I guess the idea is still in the back of my head somewhere. I just don’t know that I want to rack up those college loans again. It’s unfortunate that the thing standing between me and college is money. I never wanted money to be important in my life. But, alas… it is.

Post JET. There’s a topic for ya. I don’t know what I want to do for sure, but I guess I better get it out there in the open right now. I’m considering a third year. I’m not sure if I’d do it on this island, or even on the JET Programme, but I think I might stay in Japan for a third year. Teaching at a Japanese college would be nice, and it's definitely a possibility.

I really love it here.

…Do I say that enough?

I love it here.

And it’s the only place I’ll get to use my Japanese, so I might as well get as good as I can, while I can.

Some of the ideas I’ve thrown around the last few months are: One, of course, going back to college—getting my prerequisites for medical school and going the med route, but money is the major reason I probably won’t. Two, going to Australia for… not sure exactly. Maybe graduate school. I’d like to go to Australia though. Three, going back to Mexico. If I do that, it’ll probably be to continue teaching (and brushing up my Spanish). There’s a Japanese school in Mexico City that is looking for an English teacher at the elementary school level—my guess is the pay is pretty good and I’d get to use Spanish, Japanese and English in my everyday life. That would be ideal, but of course, they want someone now and I don't need a job for another 18 months.

There are other little things that I’d like to do along the way—such as going on a semester-at-sea deal. There’s this boat/cruise called Peace Boat in Japan that tours the world in three months while teaching classes to Japanese college students. They need English teachers as well. It’s just a three month thing, not a career, (I think it’s volunteer even, except you get room and board and get to travel the world free for three months!) but something I’d be interested in doing after JET.

I want to go to graduate school, but I still can’t pinpoint a career. I think that’s kind of important to do before applying to them. It’s still years away anyway. I’ve got lots of traveling to do before then.

…

I just got my schedule for next year. The unofficial schedule anyway. It shows I’ll be teaching 8 classes. And Norimura-sensei will invite me to all of her additional classes, which should be another four to six. And if I can talk my new supervisor into splitting up one of the first year classes and letting me teach the smarter kids once a week, I can get another class that way too. Since I have to spend all my time at the high school next year (next year starts April 8th by the way), I want to be productive about it! I’m begging for classes.

I just complimented Fukuno-sensei on his hair (because he’ll be the one making the staff room seating chart next year). Then I asked if I could sit at the same desk and he joked, “Oh no, you’ll sit next to Takeda-sensei next year!” That was a great joke—everyone laughed and then he ran away sneakily into the next room. I wanted to joke back, “Sit me next to Koichiro!” and let him decide if it was actually a joke or not. I didn't though. Actually, the desks are almost arranged by themselves. That is to say, each group of teachers is put together based on what committees they are on, so there’s not much to decide.

I just emailed myself all the pictures I took on my camera phone over the last few days, so I can post them here.

The first picture I ever took with my camera phone. In the car with Rie, driving back from Docomo.

Rie driving with the beautiful ocean out the window.

The flowers I received at my farewell party from Wakamatsu.

This is Tanabe. The first of him that I’ve posted. You don’t want to know where I got this—you might think it’s a bit stalker-ish!

And the following pictures are from this morning. The Takashima family left on the 9:30 a.m. ferry and all the teachers went to the port to say goodbye. It was a big hoopla! Here are the streamers attached to the ferry.

Yamaguchi Itsumi-sensei (the school nurse) getting all the streamers onto a long pole so they can unwind at the ferry pulls away.

Some of my students. This is Haruka (in light blue) and Yui (in dark blue).

The ferry starts to pull away.

Waving goodbye.

The streamers finally break (and the environmentalist in me says, "and litter the ocean").

My supervisor (for another week anyway) Hatakeyama watching them leave.

Farewell Kids!

On Wednesday we'll have teachers leaving at 9:30 a.m. 1:10 and 4:30 p.m. Tonight I've got another enkai with the English department. It's really wrapping up now.

It's 4 o'clock. I've blogged all day long. Otsukaresamadeshita (just a little sarcasm there)!
Love, Sierra

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