The Maiden Blog

Here it is: My first blog. I've often thought about creating a blog, but I never did as I felt it would be too time-consuming to do properly--until now. My thoughts about the amount of time this blog will need to be done properly haven't changed. What's changed is my situation. In 97 days I leave for Japan to start my job as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) for the Japan Exchange Teaching Program (JET).

This is the second year I've applied for this program. The first time I applied was two years ago. I was an alternate that year. Apparently not enough people said, "no, I certainly do not want to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. Let an alternate candidate go in my place." So I did not get to go. This year, however, I made it onto the short list. As such, several people have asked if I would keep a blog about my experiences so they could live vicariously through me. The answer, quite obviously, sits in front of you now. I hope you enjoy it.