#63 - Touchdown in Tokyo

I am now in Japan.

The flight was good. I clear in First Class which was very interesting. My chair folded out into a bed so I had a few hours sleep but I didn't manage to get much. The food was really nice and my seat was facing towards the windows so I had a nice view.

Right now I have just finished eating cup noodles. I went to he local store to buy food and got some peppermint tea too!

Tomorrow it is supposed to snow a lot so I might have to help to clear the snow from outside. I hope it is not too cold at night!

#62 - Last full day in the UK

I planned to finish packing and have everything ready so that the day before I leave, I can relax. Of course, it didn't really happen that way, though. I still have to pack over half of my things, which means it's going to be a very busy day!

I will be heading into town shortly to meet a friend for coffee and also to do a little last minute shopping for basic clothes.

It still doesn't really seem real that I am moving to Japan tomorrow. I am sure that in the morning or on the flight I will be panicking and stressing out!

#61 - Another New Start

I now have a reason to find all my old password and logins for this site.

As of Monday 4th February I will be moving to Japan to start a new job. It's all very exciting. 

I am moving to Sendai 仙台, which is the capital of Miyagi Prefecture. It is in one of the northern regions, so it is a little bit colder, and takes about 2 hours to travel there by bullet train from Tokyo. I haven't been to this area of Japan before, so I am really looking forward to meeting the people and experiencing the city and culture.

As for what I am going to do, I will be working as an English conversation teacher. It isn't something I have done before but I am really excited and looking forward to it! I have a lot of material already and have been studying hard.

On this page I will update about what I do, local events, food, anything and everything! The aim is to keep family and friends updated about what is happening, but also to expose a few things Japanese to everyone! I plan on updating more than what I have previously! Ideally I'll aim to do something at least once a month, so keep your eyes peeled.

I have started to pack one suitcase which seems to be going okay so far. I have a list of things that I plan to take and a list of things that I will/can buy from within Japan. Hopefully this will make it easier!

(I am not too sure on this, but I am going to try to find out how I can have a 'follow' button of an RSS feed to this page. Bear with me, guys!)

#60 - end of an era

Hi guys!

I am sorry if you are an avid follower of my blog (which I doubt there are any) but I have been very busy with study and uni work. However, I have now finished all of my exams and so all I need to do is await grad-ball and graduation!

As far as a career is concerned, I haven't managed yet to find a job. I would really like to be able to find a trainee translation post, such as for manga into English or something similar. I would like to be using my language skills if possible but I find that to be a little improbable, especially as I haven't done a postgrad in Translation Studies.

However, starting tonight, I am working on translating manga just to try and develop my translation skills and also as a kind of hobby, something to do with myself and all my new-found free time.

I haven't done much so far, but here is the beginning of a manga called Yasashii Watashi (Friendly me):

#59 - Christmas Holidays

I have successfully finished semester 1 of final year. To be honest, I have only had one assessment that is graded and counts towards my degree, which went quite well, even though I had hoped I would have gotten a higher mark.

At the moment I am back at home in Bristol with my parents. Because of my year abroad I havn't been at home a lot, and the most amount of time I had in this house since June was 4 hours, so it feels really strange to stay here.

On a good point, being at home means free food, fast and reliable internet connection, and a nice and warm house! And my bed is super-comfy.

I do have some work for uni to do over the Christmas period, but none of it is assessed. The modules I am doing this year are not really essay modules, which means that so far I am yet to even read a book for research. Most of my study has been learning new vocabulary words, grammar, and translation skills. I do however have a French interpreting exam in the second week of semester 2, so I need to revise phrases and word lists for that. Hopefully I will do well on it (I am aiming for at least a 2:1 grade).

I have no idea at what level my final degree will be. I know this final year is 75% of my degree, so I am trying to buckle down and study. My goal for all assessments is to get a minimum of 2:1 (at least 60%).

Wish me luck!

#58 - After Reading week

It is now week 7 in my term back at Birmingham for final year and it is quite a lot of work. Most of my classes are quite interesting and I enjoy them - such as translation and philology - but others are really quite difficult! Advanced Japanese is, well, advanced! I am having a little trouble understanding most of the classes, and there is a lot of learning of vocabulary and kanji.

French interpreting is also pretty stressful. It is interesting, but when you are given a sentence in English and have to translate it straight away into French (and vice versa) it is really tough. Often I forget what I was supposed to say so it is a little difficult! It made me think a bit about being an interpreter, which was something I considered after unviersity. I have decided it is not for me as it would be quite a high stress job. At the moment I am thinking about going into Translation, but I am still unsure.

Overall I really cannot predict how my degree will turn out. Translation either way is very difficult to grade as there is no definite right or wrong answer. Most of my studying has been just learning vocabulary and new words and trying to think of various ways to say things. It is tough but I think if I can keep it up then I will do quite well in my exams!

#57 - Return to England

My year abroad is now officially over. My last few days in Aachen were fun, and I was happy to spend some time with the friends there.

My journey back to England went smoothly. There were o big hiccups, so I still had everything on the other end! I had to go home and quickly pack up more clothes and book and all sorts to take straight up to uni and move in (as I had a meeting the next day). I am sharing a hosue with two other friends who do Japanese, and the house is actually quite good compared to the other houses inthe area we have seen.

It is currently week 2 in the semester and I have my timetable sorted. My classes are not too bad at the moment, apart from Japanese which is so very difficult! As my schedle stands at the moment, I have Mondays free! So I have an extra relaxing day which is great, and also mans I can get to work on some study things.

The next step is trying to find a part time job!

Although my year abroad is over, I will still update this blog about my studies and various things through the year. At this point in time I do not know what I want to do after I graduate (hopefully I will graduate!) so these entries could maybe help to think of the type of job I want to go into.