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Official ALT

I am finally an official ALT.  I signed my contract yesterday, and everything is going so fast!  It is exactly one month until I leave and I don't know if I'm ready or not.

I've been in contact with my supervisor, and found out that there are actually two positions in Kiso-machi; my contract is a newly acquired one.  For a while I was hoping that I would be the 'only foreigner in the village'.  Oh well, it'll be nice to have another native speaker in my vicinity.

EDIT: Just found out that the other position is also starting in September.  Well hopefully it will be someone I can talk to, make friends with, a shoulder to lean on, etc.
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  1. brppleAugust 2, 2011 at 1:05 AM

    Dear Lorelle,

    Hello! My name is Brooke and I will be your fellow ALT in Kisomachi!!! :D I found your blog through the "My Experiences as an ALT in Japan" blog! I too hope that we can become great friends and have lots of fun together ^.~

    See you soon! Lots of packing still to do AHH!!!

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  2. Elle KAugust 2, 2011 at 1:30 AM

    Hello Brooke! :D Hey I'm really glad you found me, it's nice to make contact before arriving in Japan :) What day are you going to arrive?

    Oh I know, packing is so difficult. And I might have to help my boyfriend move out before I leave :s

    Anyway, thanks for contacting me! :D

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  3. brppleAugust 3, 2011 at 12:16 PM

    Howdy again! I should be arriving in the afternoon oo the 24th, but I've been having difficulties finding an affordable flight :/ (aka I found a flight but lost my good price, darn)

    And helping to move, that's hard work, hopefully you will have some nice weather, moving in the heat is no fun :S

    Did you get Paul's e-mail? Looks like we'll be moving to the "new place" I'm excited to see what it's like!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Elle KAugust 3, 2011 at 3:01 PM

    I'm arriving on the 23rd so maybe I'll see you on the 24th? Then again you might be tired after the flight and all that :)
    Well it's actually winter here so I'm hoping that it won't rain/snow! :s

    Actually no, I hadn't heard anything about the apartments, only that it comes subsidised from the town so it's really cheap. I heard from Paul today though, and found out that I'm going to have to learn how to drive an automatic gahhh!

    But yeah it's all really exciting and coming up so fast!

    ReplyDelete
  5. brppleAugust 4, 2011 at 9:19 AM

    And here I was worried that the cars would be manual ^.~ I never thought of it the other way around, do you have a friends car you could putz around a parking lot in? I guess my biggest challenge is going to be getting used to driving on the left side of the road D: Hopefully I don't make too many crazy mistakes..

    And yeah for housing it was originally going to be an old house, but now they're having us move into some type of new housing, don't know what it will be yet!

    And yeah it'd be great to see you on the 24th! I'll need to still stay awake for a bit anyway to help make the time adjustment :S

    ReplyDelete
  6. Elle KAugust 4, 2011 at 5:33 PM

    Oh yeah, that would be hard getting used to driving on the other side of the road that you're used to! I've been looking at Japanese road rules and apparently you have to give way to the left (it's the right over here, I don't know about where you are).

    New housing! Sounds good! I hope so, and I wonder whether the internet is already set up or if we have to wait for a while.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Elle KAugust 4, 2011 at 5:35 PM

    Oh by the way, how is your jiko shoukai lesson plan going? I have no idea how I'm going to come up with 45 minutes of content! Makes me wish I'd taken some kind of teaching English course in preparation :s

    ReplyDelete
  8. brppleAugust 6, 2011 at 6:13 AM

    About that lesson plan...yeah. I've looked at the site but haven't really had any time to start - I've got the GRE exam (standardized test for grad school ick)on Monday and that along with work has sucked up the majority of my time. But after that I'll be preparing full force :D. And I think there is a lot you can talk about - I'm sure they want to know about where you come from, um even animals or the ocean or something :S

    ReplyDelete

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