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I'd like to quickly mention the JET program, and it's role in my current reality. There's a lot of shitty blogs out there, written by current and ex-JETs, and the idea is to not fall into the 'yeah so now i'm in japan and this is what I ate today' trap. Not likely though. These blogs do serve a purpose, it's one of those technological wwwonders that enables people across the globe to still know what is potting in each other's lives. But dis ain't one of dose blogs, no sirree. Let me just get to the point:
So the story goes as follows - I decided in june/july 2005 to give up my har har career and devote three years to travelling. An easy way to do this SEEMS TO BE travelling & teaching. I mainly want to go to countries where my friend English is not the first language, so it's makes sense to teach, save, and travel. Plus, you get school holidays. I do feel like cliche at times, because so many people are doing the same. But this is my story, so the others do not matter.
I decided "let me head east" (many reasons, different blog entry, maybe). Did my share of online research and stumbled upon this interesting little program called JET, which would be an acronym for JapaneseExchangeTeaching. Dunno where the "exchange" bit comes from, as I've only seen mentions of them importing people into j-pan. Not the other way around. So I sent my seven thousand pages for the appplication. made it to the next round - interviews at the Japanese embassy. Dusted off my high-heeled shoes, double-checked my self-confidence level, drove to Pretoria (not knowing where the embassy was, but I found it via luck & logic). There I wrote a 45 minute English test which included a dreadful comprehension test, no, two dreadful comprehension tests and some duh grammar questions. All done, had an interview with three people during which I talked non-stop dribble and forgot basic English words such as "passion". Throughout the interview I was so, sooo thirsty, and kept eyeing the bottles of 'made in japan' water that the interviewers had to quench THEIR thirst. Damn, I lose track quickly. Made the shortlist though, even though I praaayed for a yes/no answer. No is fine. No means I'm going to Bangkok.
Already this is too long to be a post, I'll just type this for myself. So I can look back one day, and remember. These entries are like photographs made up of words. Graphographs?
So : Why JET? a) because I'm lazy. No, no, maybe not. I just like taking the path with the least obstacles. The road with the least number of stopstreets. JET seems to provide basically everything, you just hop on the plane and sit through a crapload of orientation sessions. It also seems to pay well, and it's this little factor that leads me to b) JET is step one. the ideeeeeaaa is to go japan --> thailand --> south america. From where I'm standing now, 2 March 2005, this is my plan. But life loves a well-executed curveball, and I might be dead or in Delhi in a year's time. I don't know. But it's wonderful to have a plan, for the first time in 24 years.