News From AJET: September 2015

Hello my doves!

Congratulations: You’ve survived you first month! It only gets easier and colder from here (small mercies). If you’ve read earlier issues, you’d know that my name is Rackle and I am one of your Hyogo AJET members as well as an all-around rambunctious cannonball of affection and defender of those who sleep too much.

Now of course your real work starts as classes are back in session. I hope you like self-introductions because you’re going to get to do a lot of them. Truly though, this is when the fun really starts. You are going to just love your students and co-workers. All those club meetings and in class games are going to be some of the best times you have and believe me when I say your students will already love you.

For those of you who are nervous about teaching for the first time, don’t worry. Yes, there may be times where you worry about how good your classes are or if your activity will bomb, but believe me when I say that happens to all teachers, good and bad. Just remember that at the end of the day, your students adore you and nearly all of them just want to get to know you. They are all pretty excited to learn about you and yours. For everything else, just wing it.

September is when most of the welcome parties start, for example the Block 6 party on the 6th of September. These parties are a great opportunity to meet people in your block, prefecture and local area. It’s thanks to a welcome party that I came to bond with one of my now closest friends here in Japan, so I speak from experience. Also, don’t worry if you don’t drink or you aren’t a big party person; there’re a lot of us that are either teetotalers or prefer the quieter corners of the beer garden, so you will have many chances to find your kind of people.

Other events coming up in the calendar are of course the mid-September public holiday called Silver Week, which is a great opportunity for you to travel either in Japan or to one of the many nearby countries. Additionally, keep an eye out for the Block 6 Shikoku rafting trip around October 10th as places are limited. As a person who has gone before, I highly recommend it as a fantastic way to spend your weekend and also see some of the more remote places this region has to offer.

Good luck with your new classes and adventures and I hope you all enjoy yourselves. That’s all for this month! See you next issue.

Rackle Beaman