Watch out Okayama, the Brits are invading!

So, since my last post quite a lot has changed.
I manned up. I spoke to my friend who has been TEFL teaching for 3 years now and she calmed me down a bit. Her experiences sound mainly positive and fun; you wouldn't do something like that for 3 years if you didn't enjoy it. She's had her challenges but she's overcome them.
Soon after this meeting I got a phone call and was offered a placement in Okayama City.

Okayama is in the South of Japan, about 3 hours from Kyoto and 4 from Tokyo (on the Shinkansen). My schools, apparently mainly elementary (primary), would be in Okayama City so I wouldn't be stuck in the middle of nowhere! I have also recently found out that one of the girls I kept in contact with from my interview will also be in Okayama City. This has proved the most successful in calming me down!

I have also been put in contact with a friend of a friend (of a friend) who is from Ehime, literally just across the water from Okayama. She in turn has introduced me to her friend in Kyoto who sounds lovely and also enjoys Lolita fashion. So I have contacts and friends there now. Literally, my only worry now is the actual teaching. Having attempted a grammar test on the Interac website and not even finnishing in the allotted time has massively scared me. I really hope I am in elementary schools, not ridiculous tenses there!

My date for arrival is currently the 12th August. So soon!! I was hoping for later August  but never mind. I am slowly becoming more excited. I really hope I'll be OK!

MAN-UP HANNAH!!!!!!!!!!

I am currently very much in 2 minds as to whether I can do this!
Ok, I can deal with living in a different country, I've been before and I realise I will probably be the only foreigner wherever I am but it's not like being stared at for being different is a new thing. And the language barrier can be resolved with a phrase book and probably some pretty wild gesticulations.
No, my main issue is the actual teaching. I've been doing some research, looking at people's blogs etc and I have officially terrified myself! My overall view is that the teaching system in Japan is very different to how it is here and teachers don't seem to have half the support they get here. I've read blogs where the ALT basically just stands there and occasionally hosts a game, holds a card and is used for pronunciation but then I've read other blogs where the the English Teacher is harrassed by all the kids and has no help at all from the native teachers. I'd be happy with scenario 1, I don't particularly want a lot of responsibility. I know at our interview the Interac rep there said that we'd be team teaching with the JTE at the school and that they would handle discipline etc and I really hope that's true.
I know that here no-one would ever be allowed to teach an entire class on their own with just a certificate and 3-day course but I'm not sure that's the case over there.

I may be getting over stressed. I imagine for every blog I've read there are hundreds who have had an entirely lovely experience and I really hope that I can rise to the challenge of becoming more of an assertive person to survive but I suppose at least I know the common pitfalls I'm likely to face.

I'm meeting my friend this week who has been teaching abroad for a good few years now (and will also be in Japan when I am,hopefully) so I'm hoping that she can sort me out! I figure it can't be hideous if people can do it for so long but then again, maybe they're different sorts of people?

I will kick myself if I don't do this, and I'm not sure what I'll do with my life if I don't but at the moment reality is hitting hard!

ALT, me?

This morning I awoke to this e-mail...

"Dear Hannah,

Interac Co., Ltd. takes great pleasure in offering you a position as a Language Instructor." 

....meaning that I get to go live in Japan for 7 months. SHIT!!!!!!

This all started just before Christmas when i learnt what TEFL was (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). I like English; it was always one of my favourite lessons at school and I like to think that I'm pretty good at it. Plus, since nothing else was happening on the career front why not use what God gave me? Apparently you don't need to know a foreign language or have prior teaching experience to teach English in the rest of the world! With this in mind I enrolled on a 120-hour TEFL course with TEFLEngland. I completed the 3 days worth of practical lessons and came away thinking 'I enjoyed that but man, I am one crap teacher!'. Teaching is hard, even harder to teach English to people who already know it; you can't really judge how successful you've been but it's good practice.
I then plodded on through the grammar and the video course and every other section over the next few nights. I decided to look at summer schools in Europe to ease myself in and applied for a few.
One night, and I am not proud of this, I really wanted to watch 90210 but I had far too much to do to just sit around watching television! So, I thought I'd have a look at teaching in Japan, my ultimate destination. As well as having a look at the JET scheme, which I missed the deadline for, I found a scheme run by Interac for Assistant Language Teachers. It seemed like a pretty simple profile to fill in, easy enough to complete whilst watching Liam, Naomi and the rest do....whatever it is they do in California. Unfortunately, to complete said profile, I encountered two small essays. Since I'd come this far I figured I may as well battle on. 3 hours later (at about 1 a.m.) my application was finnished and I toddled off to bed safe in the knowledge that it at least looked like I was taking my life seriously.

A week or so later I received an e-mail from Maria informing me that I had successfully passed round one of the selection process and would I please ring her to arrange a phone interview. Well, this was one thing I was not expecting. Apparently doing work at 1 a.m. as a way to kill time works for me so I rang. Maria was lovely and after asking me various general questions about myself things got slightly less general -had I been to Japan before, did I speak Japanese, what qualities did I think an ALT needed. It turns out that 'ring to arrange a phone interview' is code for 'ring for an impromptu phone interview'. Needless to say I was caught completely off-guard and having put the phone down signed off on my dream of a Interac placement.
A good month later, whilst checking my e-mails, I recieved another message from Maria inviting me to an interview and seminar in York in 3 weeks time. For a second time Interac had surprised me with an offer. This time was more hard-core. As well as taking numerous official bits of paper I had to do 2 small pretend lessons, read a given script and introduce myself (using as much Japanese as possible). It took a while to prepare and having got this far with no preparation or thought whatsoever I was a little skeptical of succeeding with 3 weeks prep. But the seminar was interesting, the other candidates were lovely and the day went pretty well.
Shortly after this, reference requests were sent out, sent back and then a wait. Having got this far half my head was already living in Japan but I tried to reign in the daydreams. Luckily for me my references were successful, leading to yet another wait to find out whether I had been given a placement.

And that brings us full circle. I now have to formally accept my offer, fill in lots of forms, sort my visa, have an uber CRB check and arrange an x-ray to test for TB.

Although I'm ridiculously terrified, part of me is pretty calm. I've spoken to a lot of people, some with more experience in teaching or Japanese than I, and it's taken them countless applications to even get an interview. This was my first big application and I got it. It kinda feels like fate and with everything leading to this place I can't help but feel that everything will work out from here.....

Someone just posted this on Facebook, seems like a good way to end!

Jubilations and Celebrations!

It's been a busy an epic weekend this week; International Lolita Day and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee (basically an excuse to eat lots and lots of cupcakes!)

Baked goods supplied by The Calverley WI, nom nom!

International Lolita Day was a bit rainy so an indoor picnic was organised courtesy of Michaela.

Masses of fun was had by all derping around and creating new friends.
I got to wear my new Squirrel Party OP and my ears!!!

(pics stolen from Charlotte who has a big posh camera!!)

Rule Britannia!!

Simply one hell of a project!

So a while ago my friend was wanting a couple of Black Butler cosplays for may expo. I offered my services and then immediately flailed as I realised what an immense task I had just taken on! Two basically Victorian suits in 5 months, with a part time job, a social life, a TEFL course to complete and various other commissions!? AM I CRAZY!?!?!?!?!? The answer is yes, crazy busy! I managed to slip in a fitting at Hyper Japan in Feb but as my friend lives in London it wasn't possible to arrange to meet any other time!! These are the suits she wanted:

.......and......

                                         ...this Ciel.

I ended up making one of the patterns from scratch and using an authentic Victorian Men's coat pattern for the other. I'm quite happy that my first cosplay commissions were fun ones. It also made me sit down and watch the series. (I really enjoyed it! Now that I have a bit of free time I feel a Grell cosplay in the making...!)

These are my finished suits. I pretty happy with them, to say that I only had one fitting!

It's fun making garments form cartoons. The clothes are designed to look good and not adhere to construction rules. It's really interesting working out how to make the costumes. I hope I get to make more soon!!

I blame Claire and Michaela for this....

Look what is coming to me in the post........

..................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All ears....

If any of you know me and our Leeds crew then you'll know about the Unicorns Vs Bears war that rages from meet to meet. I am all for Unicorns! Masively! They are clearly the best animal ever, fullstop, period. However, there have recently been a lot of 'eared' accessories floating around and unicorn ears just don't have the same 'cute' appeal as bear ears so for this one time, I sold out.
I have invested one of these....

.....from CuteCandyClouds on Etsy. I asked for yellow ribbons instead of turquoise on mine and was rewarded with a quick and positive reply form the owner Shelby Cloud.
It took about 2 weeks for my headband to arrive and when it did, it looked like this.....

.....cute, right? I have a business card, a handwritten receipt and a money-off voucher.
The actual headband looks like this.....

(Me, no make-up, it's early, excuse my face!)
I love it! It's soft and fastens with a yellow ribbon like I asked. Although it has been made to fasten under the chin I prefer fastening it under my hair at the back. I still need to experiment with  hairstyles that suit (I'm thinking big, messy pigtails!). SHelby was lovely to deal with and I would highly recommend her shop!
I'm sure it will be worn soon so I shall post a better picture once that happens!
In the mean time, to appease Karma, here is my favourite unicorn...