When I started this blog I wanted to post monthly, however when things started to take a turn for the worst, the last thing I want to do is write about it and post my problems to everyone I know. I have tried writing this post maybe about five times over the last 3 months, but now that I have a fixed direction and plan I finally have had the energy to changed the name of the blog and I am ready to fill you in (if you are interested).
I’ll start by answering the two questions I think will come up first as people read this: Why the name change? Am I not going to Japan anymore? The simple answer to this is, yes I am still going to Japan, however I am not starting my year abroad next month; I am starting it next autumn instead. Also, I changed the name of the blog because its primary purpose has changed since the time I made it; I want to blog all my travels over the next few years on this (not just my year abroad).
Secondly, I am going to address why the sudden change of time-scale for my year abroad. This paragraph is going to be rather long so if you aren’t bothered why I’m putting it off for a year, please do skip this paragraph. Basically, in February I started to get very sick. My back problems got to the point that it made it hard for me to walk and sit up in chairs etc. Due to this I had to spend 3 months of university mostly at home in bed. Instead of attending my 5ish lectures daily I would attend one maximum. This obviously has affected my ability to perform in my course and impacted on my grades this year. Not only that though, I realised the UoL Japanese course was essentially making me very unhappy. It is completely not suited for me, it made me feel stupid all the time and like my best isn’t good enough etc (to be honest I could go on about that for hours and even I’m bored of my whining so I’m just going to leave that at ‘etc’) – I do want to be clear though the university is great, the level of teaching is impeccable in the Japanese department, however this course is just completely not suited for me at all. So, after realising this, I was left with a few options:
- Stop Studying Japanese – this was never an option to me as I’ve wanted this from such a young age and the course was what wasn’t suiting me, not the language itself
- Retake the course when I am physically better – at first this was my most favourable solution to the problem
- Studying Japanese at a different university – the issue with this was that the level I am now at thanks to UoL means that any other course might not have the pace or challenge I would expect of a course that I am paying so much to be on
- Figure out what I wanted out of the degree and find other ways to still get all of those things
If you haven’t guessed already, I have chosen option 4. I am going to quickly bullet point again my “wants and needs” from the degree and how I am going to get them, just for everyone that is interested, again if you are not one of those people skip to the next paragraph where I will talk about my next travel plans. So, what I want and my solutions as to how to get them are as follows:
- To speak Japanese – well, to be honest I already can do this pretty well. My spoken language skills are much much better than my dreaded kanji writing, and although I need to improve my speaking confidence, I feel if I ever go out to Japan for a long period of time, the rest of the language holes in my study could be filled.
- To have a qualification in Japanese so I can use this language skill for my job in the future – okay, so this is where I thought I needed a “degree” in Japanese, when infact I just need a degree in anything and some sort of Japanese proficiency (usually shown through a grade of the Japanese language proficiency test – JLPT N3/N2). I can sit this N3 exam, and even the N2 if I wanted to later on, in London twice a year. On the Leeds course, the N3 is sat next year and I am basically just giving myself an extended amount of time to learn the syllabus and ergo releasing myself of some of the stresses that the course has brought without sacrificing my Japanese grade. Luckily, the intensity of this course has gotten me to a point that I can maintain and reinforce all my Japanese knowledge that I acquired this year to be able to self-study only, in order to achieve the N3.
- To go to Japan on a year abroad – UoL allows you to do this even if you are not studying Japanese, it just costs a little more (however now I do have an extra year to keep on working and save even more money for my year abroad so this should be fine too).
- A high-class degree in something I love – if I was to continue doing Japanese as a named subject on my degree, if I even got to graduation, (which I insanely doubt I would, for many reasons that I do not wish to go over in this post – ask me about this privately if you wish to know,) I most certainly would not have a high grade, so I would question whether all the hardships I have been through were really worth it anyway. Therefore, I am taking the second half of my joint honours (Linguistics) making that into a single honours and just using Japanese as my studies and research when it comes to my dissertation/projects, (whilst studying for my N3 over the next 2 years or so).
Now I have all of the background filled in, I can get onto some more exciting things that I really wanted to talk about to you all. By giving myself another year before my year abroad, I have opened up so many more opportunities to travel. I will write a list at the bottom of my rough plans between October and next September, but before all of that, I want to share the details of my amazing opportunity that starts as early as NEXT WEEK! I have been recruited by BELL, an English Summer Camp Company, as an English tutor in one of their Italian summer camps for the next 3 weeks or so. This will involve some intense training at the start, homestay experience for the duration of my time at camps in Italy (including weekends), time to travel Italy afterwards and on weekends, as well as some incredible work experience with children teaching English. What I am most excited about with regards to the teaching, is that I am doing something I am used to but in a completely different environment. I am no longer in a classroom, instead I will be out and about, playing games, singing songs, doing sports or arts and crafts. And, if all goes well, I plan on going back to BELL over the next few years during in the summer to do it all over again! This could be the start of a very long adventure and I just cannot wait! My flight is on the Tuesday 22nd August to Florence, where my training will begin. After training I will be assigned a camp and that’s when I will know where exactly in Italy I will be staying for most of my trip (please don’t ask me beforehand because I do not know yet either). I hope I will be able to update my blog at least once whilst I am over there, but if not I’ll just post something big when I get back.
And, after like over a thousand words I think that’s about it. I am going to draw up a little list below of the places I plan on visiting next year, so be sure to check that out if you’re interested, otherwise thanks for staying this long to read my rants and thank you so much for all of your support through my journeys and beyond.
[ My approximate plans for the upcoming year are:
Italy (22nd August – mid September);
Some sort of Europe travel with Samuel over Xmas and again during Easter (maybe Helsinki, Tallin, Prague, Germany or Various Locations in Scotland);
North America again next summer (Perry, Chicago, New York, Toronto and possibly other closer places of Canada);
Italy (around a similar time next year; 22nd August-ish)
Japan (September 2018-2019). ]