Konichiwa! I’m Chris, and I am currently working through my Bachelor’s Degree in education so that I can not only go to Japan and work for a private school teaching English, but get a gig with JET. It is my goal to work for JET and work with children in public schools in Japan in order to get the full, rich experience of the country that I seek. I feel the public school system will be a more realistic day to day experience than the private school system.

I am also taking bartending classes, as I believe being a 6’1 super white guy with loooong red hair will allow me to get a gig in a happening, youth filled bar. This will force me to bring my “good enough to communicate” Japanese (which I’ll have by then!) to a point of fluency. It will also allow me to meet new people in the country, whereas otherwise I would have a hard time on the streets and end up just having my fellow English native JET associates as friends.

I’ve tried Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone in the past, and liked Pimsleur a lot (not so much Rosetta Stone), but I feel that I need a fun, written companion to Pimsleur. My goal is 30 minutes of Pimsleur a day while riding my bike, 30 minutes of TextFugu a day at home, and a 60-90 minute live session with a Japanese instructor per week to shore up and further instill what I learned earlier that week (pretty cheap in San Francisco. $20.00 for 60-90 minutes!)

Hopefully I can spend some extra time here learning too!