Shakuhachi!

Hey hey, today I went to a shakuhachi workshop. The shakuhachi is a traditional Japanese flute, originally used for meditation by monks! Anyway, it is very pretty if you can play it well. It’s a bit difficult to produce a sound at first, and takes heaps of practice to get a nice consistent sound. So it was just $5 for this quick little workshop, but that’s just cause the guy wanted to sell a few flutes. I have one now which I can choose to pay off in full, or return soon. I think I will keep it though. It’s $100 which is very cheap for a musical instrument, but I think it will be nice to practise on, and when I manage to produce a tone, it sounds very nice ^^. In the hands of a pro it would be awesome. Pity I’m only a beginner ^^. Well, I seem to have quite a nice collection of flutes now, despite the fact I can’t play any of them haha.

So here it is! My flute collection (click to see the full size picture)! From left to right starting with the little bowly thing that you probably don’t believe is a flute, we have the little bowly thing (I don’t know what it’s called haha) from China, Chinese pan pipes, Andean pan pipes, a Chinese… well… it’s a reed instrument, a Chinese flute called a Xiao, and finally a Japanese shakuhachi with the sellers label still attached haha. Funny considering I studied percussion. haha. Maybe sometime I’ll take a picture of all my percussion instruments.

So, if you can play shakuhachi, drop me a line and give me a few pointers . Right now, I certainly need all the help I can get…

Leap Year!

You know, it only happens once every 4 years, so I’m not going to get a chance to pointlessly write about it again for a while… February 29! Woo!

2月29日です！おめでとう！イエイ！次の2月29日は4年後だから、僕は書いています。ｗｗ

ECC

There is a reason why I started a new blog. This blog allows comments from people without an account here, whereas my previous blog did not. This is important to me because I will be going to Japan, and I want my friends and family to have a way to check up on my adventures

So, about that… Two years ago I decided to go to Japan. Over the two years reasons changed and interests evolved. I went for a job interview with a company called ECC (English through Communication for the Community). They have many schools throughout the Kinki, Chubu and Kanto districts, which are all next to each in central Japan. So I went for my interview which consisted of a group questions and answers session with a guy from the company and the two recruiting people, followed by a killer 1 hour English test with a minimum pass rate of 70% (that test knocked back about 40% of the applicants), a role play (pretending to teach beginner level kids), and finally personal interview. There were breaks in between each stage and it all lasted from 10am to 3:30pm. Talk about fast contact though, they called me at 5:30 to confirm that I was successful. After people failed the English test, there were only 13 people left, so they just talked about it afterwards, made decisions, and contacted us soon after.

So, in 3 or 4 months I’m expecting to go to Japan to teach English! It will be 29.5 hours a week. The pay is not amazing, but it’s enough. I’m going for the experience, not to get rich, and I’m really looking forward to it! I will be teaching adults and children, about 50% of the time on each. Well, that’s what I’ve been told to expect, but it could lean more towards adults or more towards kids depending on, well, a lot of things.

Well, the next step is to wait for placement info. I’m really hoping to get the kinki district, as that will mean Kansai, and very likely Osaka. Osaka’s dialect is very colourful and relaxed, very reflective of the people. Also, the only possibility for my own apartment (box) is if I am placed in Osaka. Well, wherever I end up, I will put my Japanese to the ultimate test, and see how living in a foreign country works out!

But before any of this happens, I’m going to CHINA for 10 days from the 23rd or March, where I’ll see Australia play China in a World Cup qualifier. It will certainly be interesting sitting in the green and gold army surrounded by tens of thousands of Chinese supporters. I’m going with my dad and brother, along with 3 family friends. I’ll have to brush up on my survival Chinese

Ok! Good to go!

English:
Ok! We’re good to go!  The blog is mostly set up and now all I have to do is… well, write stuff.  I wonder if I’ll keep writing here..  time will tell!  Well, I don’t want to have a lonely blog, so if you visit, please leave a comment!  My English speaking friend and Japanese speaking friends may visit, so I’ll write Japanese here too to keep practising!  Don’t be surprised if you see some Japanese comments around too, because not everyone I know is good at English ^^.  I wonder if there will be any language problems or anything.  It should be fine though I think!  Well, I’ll write some useful stuff tomorrow.  It’s too late to be blogging now!

Oh one more thing, 日本語 <– if you see boxes there instead of Japanese characters, then obviously you won’t be able to see any of the Japanese.  You also won’t be able to see the cool smiley faces people make with Japanese characters…  (´- `*)   but often people who are not used to seeing them can’t figure out what they are (¬_¬;)….  Here’s a fairly easy one though…   ＼(゜ロ＼)  Just a person holding their arms up.  The rest is self explanatory (^_^)!

僕のへたくその日本語 (My bad Japanese) :
さて、じゅんび出来た！このブログはもっとも構えて、書くだけしなくちゃだめ。　寂しいブログ欲しくないから、コメントしてください！お願いね～！僕の英語を話すの友達と日本語を話すの友達もこのブログに来るから、僕は英語と日本語で書きますぅ～！いい練習だな～　日本語と英語のコメントは入れ、びっくりしないでね！言語の問題が出るかもしらないけど、大丈夫だと思うよ！心配しないで！英語で、日本語でも大丈夫だよ！

さあ、今は遅いから、多分明日もっと書くの方がいいでしょう。
このブログ、また来てくださいね！　そしてね、訂正してもいいよ！　＾＾

じゃあ、お休みなさい皆！

My terrible Japanese has been exposed!

*Peter runs and hides*

Customary First Post

Well, first off, welcome to my blog! I just made it so I’m sort of welcoming myself to it as well. It seems to have heaps of features and customizability, so I’m gonna get to work on customizing it soon. I thought it would be nice to have a blog so I can write up about my life, especially now that I’ll be heading off to Japan, and people can check if they feel like it without me having to bother those who don’t with emails. Of course there are the other advantages of media, design, and comments of course! So far I’m very impressed with the features offered by this site, and I’ll be off now to start exploring it!

More later! Ciao for now!