the joys and headaches of teaching in a foreign land

先生

せんせい

sensei

teacher

Please read Learning How to Teach, a wonderful blog entry by my friend Adam, who is currently teaching up in Fukushima Prefecture. We went to college together at the University of Maryland and were a part of the same Christian fellowship on campus, and now we've both ended up in Japan at the same time, rather coincidentally. Although he works for a different organization, and teaches at a junior high school rather than a senior high school, our jobs are just about identical. In his post, he talks about some of the differences between Japanese and American culture, and also has some great insights on what Japanese students are like. I'm finding lots of this to be true in my own situation. I'm writing this as a sort of reflection on his entry.

another adventure, another blog

Rather than figuring out the far more important "what I need to pack", I set up a new blog so I can write a complete nonsense post. Now this feels vaguely familiar...

My flight into Narita International leaves in little more than a week, and I haven't even begun to consider what's going into my bags (maybe just bag?) yet. I suppose this is a sign that packing for a long trip has become something of a challenge for me. A challenge to see how much time I can spend doing other things before all the pent-up nervous energy forces me to take action. Sort of like playing chicken with the departure date. Unfortunately, I don't anticipate Time swerving out of the way at the last second to protect me from being unprepared. I hope something happens soon because I'm supposedly responsible for buying gifts for all my new friends. Note to self: shop for gifts.