In addition to the list of tedious things to do from last time, there are also a few fun things that I still want to buy before I leave including: stickers, toys, and teacher gifts.
Basically I was told by other JET participants that having a ton of stickers would be really useful during my classes since they don't take up a lot of space in my bags and it's a nice reward to give to the students! At first I was only looking for stickers with English words on them (it reminded me of my high school Spanish class where we'd get stickers saying "¡Fantástico!" and whatnot) but recently I've been picking out others with US cultural themes as well. Today I got a bunch of Halloween/holiday stickers, and others with Disney characters on them... oh America, I guess this is what I think of when I think of you... haha. I've also been buying other small toys and nick-knacks that can easily fit in my suitcase. I had a lot of fun at the dollar store buying things like shaped erasers, children's books, grow-your-own dinosaurs, plastic watches, a cute embroidery kit, a couple calendars, some Red Sox baseball themed items (I hope they get into the playoffs!), and candy. My boyfriend tells me that I'll be a popular teacher with all the toys I'm bringing... hopefully that will be the case!
In addition to the class-related items I'm bringing I'll also be buying some gifts for my fellow teachers over the next few days. Gift giving and receiving is an essential part of Japanese culture that is very structured. For example, on Valentine's Day in Japan girls give the boys they like (and boys they work with) chocolates, then on March 14th the boys are expected to reciprocate by giving the girls a white-colored gift in return (this Japanese holiday is known as White Day). Luckily as a foreigner I'm not expected to know/understand all the idiosyncrasies of gift giving and receiving but according to my official JET General Information Handbook it is polite to give small gifts to the people I will be working closely with and to my supervisors when I first start work. The gifts will preferably be things that represent the area I come from so I've been trying to think of Massachusetts or Boston-related gifts to bring. So far I've decided to look for maple syrup, dried cranberries, and maybe some saltwater taffy. I'll also be printing out some picturesque photos of my hometown to give as well.
In other news I had a lovely Skype conversation with Anne, the girl who is going to be my roommate in Japan. I had a lot of questions for her and she had a ton of advice to give and so we ended up talking for a good two hours; my brother was impressed that I was able to talk so much to someone I've never met. Anne studied a lot of Japanese in college, completed a year in the JET program a few years ago and now is back for round two! I think we may be the only JETs in all of Japan who are sharing an apartment, since the town's situation is very unique. But I think we'll get along well based on our conversation!
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