JALT Conference 2012

So, let me tell you about the conference I went to Oct. 12-14 in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka:

JALT is the Japanese Association of Language Teachers, so the conference was all about teaching English as a second language. Many teachers were there from all over the country, even some from other countries. There were talks and workshops, a dealer room for publishers, big presentations, and some parties, too.

The conference was right across from Hamamatsu City's train station at a place called ACT City. It's a huge area that has a building with two concert halls, a hotel, a big shopping center, a music museum, and 3 big exhibition halls!

 I was a volunteer along with about 50 other students. I did many jobs (some more fun than others haha) including giving directions around the conference, taking registration, moving and setting up projectors, and stuffing bags with materials. I was working most of the time, from about 8am to at least 6pm, so I didn't get to attend many talks, but I did hear a few tidbits here and there. At the parties, I got to meet some teachers from other universities and speak with them.

Everyone in the "intern room" on the first day for a welcome party with games and pizza-

The best part by far, though, was meeting all the other volunteers. Right from the very beginning we became a team so I felt like I could talk to anyone even though we had just met. And so many of them were so great! We had tons of fun working together, or talking during lunch, or staying together at the hostel. The last night, even though we were dead tired, about 10 of us stayed up to tell ghost stories. Unfortunately, most of them live about 3 hours away in Nagoya, but now if I go visit I will have people to meet up with!

I took the night bus there and back with Holly on Thursday and Sunday nights, and also got up super early to work all day, so basically I was a zombie for the whole weekend, but I took Monday and Tuesday off work so I had time to recover. All in all, it was a great weekend!

The JALT intern team

settling in

So I've been here a month now, and I'm really getting into the swing of things. I'm actually going to be quite busy these next few weeks.

My self-introduction poster for the International Exchange Center

This weekend I visited an English pub in Meguro and went shopping in Harajuku. The weather has finally changed into fall weather, which awesomely happened on my birthday. Also on my birthday I got to wander around Yoyogi Park, one of my favorite places ever!

Me with my carrot cake :)

Super awesome chair from Travis-

Cute soap dish from one of my students!

The EEDC (English department) has a blog which I've written for too. The first post by us, the interns, is here.

Tomorrow I will be joining in on a graduate school business class, so I'm a bit excited for that. I have to read a case study tonight to prepare, and then we will discuss in class mostly in Japanese. I might learn more this time than the students haha

This weekend I'll be working at the JALT conference in Hamamatsu. It's a big conference for English teaching in Japan, and I'll be there along with other student volunteers and some of the professors who will be giving and attending presentations. I won't have too much free time it looks like, but I hope I can attend a few presentations at least.

I've also been hanging out with the dorm cat, Mina, so here's some cute pics :)