First Post

Hello friends, family, and anyone who stumbled on here from Google. As some of you know, I am moving to Sado, Japan to participate in the JET Program. Sado is a small island in the Sea of Japan, about 25 miles off the coast from the port city of Niigata. Sado appears to have a fascinating local culture, influenced by its remoteness, a gold mine that attracted workers from all across Japan, and from being a place of exile for disgraced nobles from the imperial capital of Kyoto. I’m very excited to get to know the culture firsthand. The JET Program is an exchange program run by the Japanese government’s Ministry of Education and is the largest ESL organization in Japan. Officially, I will be what’s known as an Assistant Language Teacher. As the job title implies, I will be assisting a Japanese national English teacher in the classrooms of the Japanese public school system. I created this blog as a way to keep in contact with everyone back home and to keep everyone updated on what’s happening here in Japan. Thank you for your interest. I’m looking forward to documenting my experience.