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At the moment I am waiting for a very important letter to arrive. It is due to arrive any day now and will at the very least determine the path of my life for the next year.

4 years ago I was accepted onto the JET programme and turned down the offered placement at the last hurdle. To say I was gutted was an understatement and the person who saw me make the call to the Japanese embassy to pull out will vouch for my mood after I put the phone down.

What had originally been just a throwaway idea someone had suggested to me konwing of my interest in Japan, had become a dream of mine. I had made various plans of thing to see, do and experience whilst in Japan and so to have it taken away was a bitter blow.

However in the next week I should receive a letter that will tell me if I have a second bite at the cherry and I am optimistic about it, if apprehensive. Should I not get a place it is very likely that I will put my hands up and allow myself to become shackled by a career and begin to settle down and the only way I would ever see Japan would be as a tourist on a 2 week trip there.

These nerves have led to me frequenting various Japan and JET related websites and it was looking through one of the forums that I was a member of 4 years ago that I found something to add to my to do list for Japan…

I have told friends that I intended to bring kimonos back from Japan so that I would always have a costume ready for fancy dress in the future and to possibly make for an interesting decoration for my home in later life. I would be getting two such outfits, one male and one female - After all I do have a reputation as a crossdresser to maintain! An extra bonus is that the thick, white makeup a geisha wears should also cover up my stubble rather nicely.

But I have found an idea that kind of trumps that, at least one studio offers geisha makeovers and photoshoots. I’ve checked and they should have kimonos in my size and so for ¥22,000 (or just over £100) I can get professional photos of me in a couple of different outfits - Obviously something like this appeals to my sense of humour and so it’s gone straight into my top 10 list of things I have to do in Japan.

If you want to find out more of what I want to do in Japan, please keep your fingers crossed for me for the next few days and you might just find out.

 It’s been a bit quiet on here of late due to me being a little preoccupied with preparing for an interview. My preparations started 5 weeks or so ago when I shaved off my multicoloured hair - I have enough that makes me stand out as a candidate without having to take a chance of something like crazy hair, which potentially could be seen as a good thing, but more probably wouldn’t.

The interview was today and whilst I wouldn’t have minded a steak at the Texas Embassy what I want even more is a place on the JET Programme - If I get that, it means that in August I will be heading to Japan for a year to help teach English.

I have applied before and I was even offered the job, but due to circumstances I turned it down (which led to complications when I reapplied the following year), but here’s hoping it’s a case of third time lucky, so that I can finally achieve on of my ambitions.

I am hoping that the interview went well, as almost everything else on the day didn’t go to plan. I managed to wake up late, so I had to rush out of the door to get the coach to London and then when I got there intent on doing a little sight seeing before the interview I found out that I had left the memory card for my camera at home - Meaning all I had was my cameraphone for the day. Additionally walking around in the shoes I had bought for the interview, meant that by the time of the interview I was limping around London rather than walking.

As to the interview itself, I either aced it or went down like the Hindenburg. Going in it was ‘casually’ mentioned that I was remembered from my previous applications, however as I have been accepted before I don’t see that as a bad thing. Once I got into the interview itself though my cunning plans may as well have been laid by mice, they went so astray. I went onto autopilotand answered their questions as best I could and I could see some of my answers surprised them - I literally saw one of them do a double take when I said, “For a lesson on St. Patrick’s Day I dressed up as a leprechaun.” and I had both of the interviewers laughing during my interview - Either they liked my candour in answering their questions or they were wondering how on earth I had got the interview.

I hope it was the first option.

Now though it’s a case of waiting for several weeks until I get a letter telling me of my fate…

As you approach the entrance to the Oriental Museum in Durham the entrance is flanked by two Shishis and putting this picture up today has turned my minds to thoughts of Japan and my plans to head out that way - After all it’s less than a year now until I will be out there*

In particular I have spent a large part of my time today considering where in Japan I would like to wind up. My experience from Germany suggests that in reality it doesn’t matter where I wind up as I requested to be placed in South Germany and I was put just about as far north as one can go and still be in Germany, but I’d still like to pick somewhere ideally that I know a little about. I’m also pretty sure that I’d prefer the north over the south, purely because of the weather - Snow I can deal with, but heat and humidity is another matter altogether.

So it was that I stumbled across the website for the Japan National Tourist Organisation and started looking up a few places just to see what I could find to tempt me and the answer was lots!

For example in central Honshu is an area known as Gifu which has over 80% or its area covered in woods and forests, mountains rising to over 3,000 meters, is home to one of the largest festivals in Japan and numbers cormorant fishing on the Nagara river among it’s many tourist attractions.

It’s all very tempting except that then I looked at Hokkaido and found an annual festival that takes place in a town where people paint faces on their bellies and go dancing in the street and as to natural attractions it is not left wanting with everything from marshes to volcanoes and hot springs. In particular one ambition I have after my research today is to go diving in Lake Shikotsu-ko which thanks to being oligotrophic (Yes, I had to look up the definition.) has amazing visibility compared to most other bodies of water.

So once again my curiosity is a mixed blessing, I’m going to find it hard to choose a place I’d like to live in whilst over in Japan - but even if I don’t wind up anywhere near where I requested to be it looks like I shouldn’t have too much trouble in finding things to do wherever I am.

*If things go to plan for once. I have a terrible sense of direction the last time I aimed for Japan I wound up in Germany.

When I was at university I construted a five year plan, which upon completion would see me having seen some more of the world and start upon my chosen career of teaching.

Since then it has been delayed by a couple of setbacks, but at it’s not really time sensitive that hasn’t been a problem and the year I spent in Germany for example I cannot in any way regard as wasted time and not just because of the fun I had out there.

That said since coming back from Germany, I do feel like my time has been wasted. I may have paid the bills, but I am very conscious that I am marking time until I can begin my five year plan, which due to some disorganisation on my part until yesterday wasn’t going to be beginning until August 2008 when hopefully I would be leaving for Japan on the JET Programme.

But I may have found a way to avoid wasting the time until then, as well as make myself an even better applicant for the JET Programme - Originally my plan was to do a PGCE after coming back from Japan as I thought that you have to do your first year of teaching shortly after getting the PGCE.  This is not the case, although the do recommend doing it within 5 years (which handily fits in with my five year plan).

So the new five year plan is the same as the old one except year 5 becomes year 1 meaning, I get the PGCE, bugger off for a couple of years to teach English in Japan and travel and then come back and do my first year as a teacher.

And even better (so long as I get a place on a PGCE) it means if it works out that not only will I finally have begun my five year plan, it means I only have to work in call centre hell for another 3 months! Although just in case this doesn’t work I will be looking for other work anyway.

Yesterday I found out I was not going to be going out to Japan on the JET Scheme in August and I was gutted for all of 5 minutes, after all I was looking forward to it. After 5 mins of feeling gutted I realised I now had no idea what I was going to do upon graduation as my ideas of being a Sab for UWESU or JET had both fallen through.

I decided that I still wanted to do something different and so I thought I would look at the British Council Website for some inspiration and it looks like I have found it. Why not become an assistant Enlish teacher in Germany? After all they are still accepting applications and I speak German thanks to having studied it for 7 years at school and the odd bit of practice at uni it isn’t too bad.

Unlike Japan it is only part time but a quick look has shown me that it is feasible and could well be a way forward as I reckon I can easily suppliment my teaching work with a little private tution to help the money go a little further.

I think I am going to apply for either the general area I went to on the school exchange or possibly see if I can wind up near Göttingen, either way I get to see a part of the world in a similar way that JET would have allowed me to and I will undoubtably try and see as much of Germany as I can whilst I am there.

As an additional bonus if I reapply to JET the experience I would have garnered as an ALT in Germany should stand me in good stead as I will ave shown I can live in a foreign country and help teach English.

I always said I wanted to take my German a bit further and now by chance it looks like I may well have found a way to do it.

I have just been down to get the mail and I have had my letter from the Japanese Embassy and doesn’t look like I will be getting a ticket to ride this year. So now I have to come up with something to do for after I graduate.

Got to admit I am feeling gutted but life goes on and there is always next year I suppose as I would really like to go, still for the moment if I am to go it looks like it will be as a vistor only.

Unfortunatly the letter doesn’t say why I was turned down so I don’t know if it was the technicality I was warned about or just down to the vaguaries of the JET application process, although I suspect the latter.

Getting this letter has made me realise just how much I wanted to go and how I hadn’t really planned for the worst, still I have plenty of time to work things out.