Preparation seminar, June 26th and 27th, 2010

Two weeks ago I attended the semi-voluntary Pre-Pre departure Orientation in Vancouver. The orientation lasted two days, with the first day being seminars on how to adjust to living and working in Japan, paying your taxes and managing your Japanese money, what to do from now until we arrive in Tokyo and your first month in Japan, what to do when you come back from Japan, and finally a Q and A session with JET Alumni.

The first day was held at the Coast Coal Harbour Hotel in downtown Vancouver. I was silly and forgot my camera at home the first day so I don't have any pictures. There were about 100 people there, not including the other JET alumni and speakers. Courtesy of the Internet, this is the ballroom where it took place



The above picture is actually a poor representation of the size of this room. What's shown here is really only maaaaybe half of the room.
Plus, the layout was of course quite different. It was massive.

Having an active presence on the JET forums answered many of the questions I could have had coming to this preparation seminar. However, they were able to directly answer or confirm my answers to some of my other questions, such as, am I allowed to smile in my Alien registration card photo? And so on. It also made me think of loads of questions that I should ask my Supervisor, Kawahara sensei, or my pred, Melody.

I think the best seminars for me were the Culture Shock and Managing your Money/Taxes. I now have a much better grasp on what to do when these come up, which are both a bit inevitable.

After the first day, they held a bit of a reception down the road, at a pub where they served many appies. It was nice to relax after the long day and get to talk one on one with some of the JET Alumni. I met both my interviewers again :)

The second day of the seminar was held at BCIT in one of their downtown campuses. There were only about 30 people here this day. The seminar was held solely on working in Japan in Japanese classrooms. I liked this seminar, but I felt with my teaching background a lot of it was common sense for me already. I think there could be a little bit more emphasis on what to expect when you create a lesson plan and it just bombs, and how to handle situations like that.

So all in all, I took a lot of useful information away from the seminar, and got to connect with a lot of great people! It was worth the trip!