"Do you know Japanese?"

A simulation of conversations I have had with approximately 234535624 people:

"Oh yea, well, I can't do X because I'm moving soon"

"Oh, where are you moving to, Cohoes, Albany?"

"Japan."

(gasp of surprise)

"Really? Do you know Japanese?"

"I took it for 2 years in college as a minor, so I can ask the important questions and get around painlessly enough. But there's a lot I still don't know."

"Why are you moving?"

"To teach English. The market is much better in Japan than over here, since you can actually TEACH with just a Bachelors, and usually make more money than you would teaching in public schools. So, more money, less college loans. Although South Korea pays more..."

"How are you going to teach without knowing Japanese?"

"Well, almost all "Eikaiwa schools (英会話の学), or English Conversational schools, don't want you speaking any Japanese at all. The reason being that Japanese people have a grasp on the English language, but schools only focus on writing and reading, primarily. So Eikaiwa schools exist to augment people who want to increase their English language knowledge for whatever reason. The point being that-"

(by this time usually the person is either pretending to still be interested or making obvious signs of boredom)

"they just need direction and positive reinforcement on proper pronunciation, grammar and word usage. Now teaching children is different, and rather intimidating in my opinion, since you have to keep kids attention and make everything look like a game. Even more extreme is if they are total novices, you basically just play an intense game of charades, trying to get them to associate an English word with some sort of action."

(at this point I hang my arms like a primate, say "oo oo aa aa" and scratch my head while lumbering around, and if the person is still paying attention, they laugh and get the idea)

--

This concludes the beginning of my blog, a triple-post on my one day off since I work 60 hours a week right now to try and save money (a recommended $3,000 in moving and initial living expenses, in fact) for the big move. Sayonnora!

First post.

Hello world. My name is Benjamin Belcher, but you can call me Ben. There are those of you that know me, and those that don't. However, I invite anyone and everyone to check out this blog if they so desire to. I'm only giving a heavily truncated version of my life thus far in this post, merely a few important things you need to know about me and the purpose of this blog.

Still with me? Cool.

I am 23, a recent English major graduate from SUNY Albany, and I leave in 43 days for Tokyo (prefecture to be announced) to become an English teacher. I'm going to keep this blog as far away from my job as possible. The focus here is to record my adventures in a foreign land roughly 6700 miles from home. I've lived in Upstate New York all my life, and as much as I love the places and the people, it's time for a change. For better or for worse, this blog will record my ups and downs, trials and tribulations, mishaps and culture gaps, with fun pictures of my travels and a personal record of how I felt along the way. Primarily this blog is for me, but as it is 100% public it's also for the enjoyment of friends and strangers alike, so that you might get a glimpse into my life, and understand what it is like for a 6'1" white caucasian male to move to Japan. It's all been said or done before, but not my way.

What this blog is not:

This blog isn't a place for me to cry for attention. It's not a list of whiny complaints (at least not most of the time, I promise you) about how much I miss home or can't stand crowded trains or miss Snyder's Pretzels™. It's not a place for me to complain about my job, because quite frankly, you don't shit where you eat. A reputable company has chosen to employ me, and the least I can do is separate business and recreation. This blog is admittedly amateur, but I will do my best as an anally retentive English obsessee to keep it grammatically correct, well-written and quite simply enjoyable to read. I've been reading and writing a long time, so I promise you all my best on this.

Now that we have long-winded introductions done with, welcome. Enjoy your stay in my slice of cyberspace. Updates may be sparse at first as I am preparing for my move (more details on this and all its crazy facets later), and also when I first move as setting up internet can be a timely process, from what I understand of other peoples' accounts.

Countdown to D-Day: 43 days.