Blog Moved

Hey everyone I have officially moved my blog to my website. so please go check it out and while you are there look at the other parts of the site too! Johnism.com

JET interview

I received my JET interview! Feb 17th at 10:00 in Atlanta. It really is nice to be moving closer to my goal after 1 year of waiting.

Certification

So I have decided to get TEFL certification for those of you who do not know that is Teach English as a Foreign Language Certification. I am doing this in hopes that it will assist me in getting into the JET program. There is only one drawback... It is a real pain in the ass! I am attempting to finish it with in the next several weeks to meet the application deadline but it is taking longer than I had expected. I hope that I can mussle through it soon and finish ahead of schedule treating it like a band aid that I am ripping off quickly as oppose to pulling it off lowly and painfully.

few questions

School has started back and I have decided to get TEFL Certification in the next month so I can stack my deck a little before I apply for JET in September. has anyone out there done this? is it easy? It sounds to me like a hoop that you have to jump through to get better odds of acceptance. I really hope that I am not just trowing away my cash and I get some insight from it. Oh ya, for those of you who live or have lived in Japan, how long did it take to get use to speaking Japanese or at leaste comfortable with normal every day tasks such as getting food, and how much Japanese training did you have before you went?

experiences, life, learning and relationships.

Other than waiting to apply, or finding something to occupy myself for a year or two before I can accomplish my goal, the most difficult side of the JET program goal is my current relationship. Ashley loves Japan, she has been obsessed with it sense she was a little girl. Her minor in college is Japanese, her art often focuses on Asian cultures, she loves eating Japanese food, etc. She is the one that told me the name of the JET program. I think she regrets this last one. even though she loves Japan and is facinated about it, she dosent know if she wants to apply to it. She wants me to wait another year for her to get out of school so we can apply together, assuming she decides to apply at all. this dosent make any sense to me, even if we applied together we don't want to go to the same place, even if we did want to go to the same place I don't think they would place us there. Also I don't want to do this with some one that I know. If I did then I don't think I would get the same out of the experience. She has become fairly spiteful about any aspect of it. Me learning Japanese makes her upset especially if I learn a word that she dosent know or make a mistake when studying. To her saving my money for the cause seems pointless because I haven't been accepted yet. She thinks I am a fool to leave my Job that I really do love for some thing that I don't know if I will enjoy or not. Heck she doesn't even read this blog even though I talk about it and the other blogs that I read all the time. When I apply in late August or September I assume we will have a huge knock down drag out fight about it and the same if I get an interview or accepted.

Her concerns and emotional qualms have a base to them. She knows that if I am accepted it is probably the end of our relationship. I guess that is a horrible thing to say but it is within all likely hood true. I guess this project is fairly selfish on my part but I think it is to great an opportunity to pass up.

life and experiences

as some of you know, I am an atheist. I believe that when we die all consciousness ceases and that is that. This is one of the main driving forces in my life. People have posed the question "what is the meaning of life?" of course their is no solid anser to that but to me it turns more into a goal than a meaning. so here it is... I was born to procreate eventualy, to learn as much as I can, and to experiance as much as possible.

I have always learned new things in an obsessive manner, my family can atest to that. I will focus in on one or two things untill I think I have learned enough of it and then I drop it. This was more prominate in my life untill around the time that I moved off to college. at that point my goals shifted to atempt to experiance as much as I can. I still love to learn but I look at what I can gain from experiances as a powerful teacher.

I have been contemplating exactly what is drawing me to attempt to move to Japan and I have concluded that the two main reasons are to learn and experiance. It is such a good chance to do those two things that I would be a fool not to try.

Unfortunately Experiances, learning and Japan have become a sore subject in my releationship. Ill explain in the next post...

ok so music is another thing to look in to

OK so I'm am still looking in to all kinds of things now that I am out of college and have decided that I must learn more and more about random things that I don't feel that I have explored enough. So the other day I decided that music was one of those things that I should add to the list. So here is the starter list that I have made over the last two days compiled from several Friends that I think have unique out looks on music.

• The Arcade fire
• At the drive in
• Cattle decapitation
• glass jaw
• Hank snow
• cursive
• holy molar
• negative land
• guapo
• sleepy time gorilla museum
• download
• Mr Bungle
• Tom Waits
• John Coltrane
  
• Nick Cave
• Golelin
• Morphine
• T Bone Burrnett
• Guapo
• Iron and Wine
• Ghost Hand Observatory
• LCD Sound System
• Dandy Warhols
• Silver sun pickups
• Chromeo
• Richard Wagner
• Mike Oldfield
• Muddy Rivers

That is the start of the list if anyone wants to add to that list please feel free to comment and help my musical boarders be broadened.