Welcome!

So thank you very much for coming to check out the wills and wiles of 日本 and Brandon's Nonsense—it's pronounced ni-hon for those of you who were wondering—where nonsense and Japan pervade. In other words, I'll be posting here, logging my adventures and misadventures while living in the Land of the Rising Sun.


For those who are going, "What?! Japan?" read on...

Yes, I'm moving there. Cosmo Global Communications School connects with the Japanese Ministry of Education to recruit Assistant English Teachers for middle schools in 名古屋市 (that's Nagoya-shi). But enough of the proper nouns and crazy German-like capitalization; this is where I come in, as one of those recruits. We ship out in mid-April sometime. やった！ And beyond that, I'm not really sure of many more details, so here they are for your viewing pleasure:

1. Will be hired for a school year (8.5 months), but planning on staying at least 2 years.
2. Pay = ¥2.5 million which is roughly $27,000 (per year, of course), and approximately 2.5% in taxes taken out.
3. Haven't figured out housing yet, but Cosmo does provide assistance in this area. However, I'm investigating Zen temples as an option and staying with a Japanese family as another.
4. There's mandatory national health care coverage, but it's cheap (as in cost, not sure about quality, but it's Japan, so probably fairly good).
5. Japanese cell phones are awe inspiring technologies.
6. There are free Japanese classes on Saturdays for all Cosmo recruits. Score! Though that's hardly adequate, so lots of self study (i.e. hanging out a lot where English is nonexistent).
7. Japanese clothes are smaller than American clothes. I'm 6' 1".
8. There will be a 10 day orientation and settling in, starting April 20.
9. Toyota and Mitsubishi are headquartered in Nagoya.

That's all I can come up with now, in convenient list format.

Truly, the whole golly-good-grief-I'm-moving-to-Japan reality and excitement and fright hasn't hit me yet. I'm more at the when's-dinner?-oh-right-Japan-I-almost-forgot stage. But's things seem to be sinking in and falling into place.

My mom is being wonderfully supportive and helpful, even though I'm certain she would rather this be a Brandon-moving-to-Texas event than a 3200-more-miles-away-and-19-hour-time-difference one. So, if you see her, give her a big hug and smile; she deserves it.

So, if you've actually read this far, thanks for hanging in with the nonsense and slightly obnoxious English. That's it. We can all get back to something productive now.

P.S.

Oh, and if you've been asking, "What are those strange box things that he keeps sprinkling in this post?" then your computer isn't blessed with a Japanese font—that is, those are Japanese words, but your computer can't show them. If you're of the curious bent, try downloading a Japanese font. Just scroll all the way down to the bottom and click the button. You can then choose; I recommend IPA Mincho.