Just another Swat Graduate blog...

Encouraged by my friends and having long held the desire to be one of those disciplined journal writers and bloggers, I started this blog to chronicle my one year of adventures in Japan, where I will teach English through the JET Program around Amakusa city, Takahama town.

The title of this blog, as a select few of you will be able to tell, is modeled after another great blog authored by a certain Jeff McManus and Virginia Tice called "So Far in Bihar," a collection of their reports from their year working in India's Bihar Province for JPAL (which I still like to believe stands for Justice Poverty Action League).  Consider it the best form of flattery, Jeff and Virginia.  I'll admit that part of me still thinks my title lacks sincerity, gravitas, or what have you, but so far as rhythm and rhyme, it works.

In case any of you are still wondering, I haven't left for Japan just yet;  I leave in four days.  In those four days, I have to:

• Pack three suitcases full of clothes, gifts, and supplies
• Buy more gifts from either Philly or DC, since I identify with these cities just as much as I identify with Maryland
• Organize a last few get togethers with my friends
• Buy new shoes (my dog chewed up a pair; to them they are like glorified rawhide bones)
• Select, organize, and print photos to take with me

OK. It's not that bad when I write it out like that, but I am leaving out some details, as well as the other list of things I've already done in preparation for my departure.  

Challenge for the Reader

As a JET, I am not only supposed to be a(n) (assistant) teacher of English, but also an ambassador of American culture and society.  Big mistake.  I am one of the least culturally educated people I know, especially when it comes to music.  

If you think there is a song, album, artist, movie, or book that I just have to have with me before I go and represent America to a bunch of rural Japanese, please let me know.  Assume that I don't know anything.  You can take it really seriously and think "Which {song/album/artist/movie/book} represents America the most?  Which ones are in the American canon of great {songs/albums/artists/movies/books}?"  or you can just give me any {song/album/artist/movie/book} that you like a lot.

I also now have an Amazon Kindle, which before I judged as an unnecessary luxury and a threat to the life of the traditional, physical book, but now see as a necessary, cost effective, and environmentally friendly way of  procuring English-language reading material while I am abroad.  Therefore, do not hesitate to send me book recommendations even when I am in Japan.

That's it for this first blog post.  Now I'll take advice from my DC JET survival guide and "Let's Packing!" 荷造りを始めましょう！