Guest Speaker: Dr. Masahisa Nakamura
Integrated Lake Basin Management (ILBM) is an approach for achieving sustainable management of lakes and reservoirs through gradual, continuous and holistic improvement of basin governance, including sustained efforts for integration of institutional responsibilities, policy directions, stakeholder participation, scientific and traditional knowledge, technological possibilities, and funding prospects and constraints. Dr. Nakamura will discuss the conceptual framework of ILBM, possible application schemes, and some lessons learned over the past decade, as well as the issues and challenges of facing select cases in developing and developed countries, and implications for the global water debate.
Contact culture@cgjmia.org with any questions.
Movie Showing: Departures
The Japanese Consulate is hosting a viewing of the Japanese film Departures (winner of the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film; in Japanese known as おくりびと) on January 12 at Florida Southern College in Lakeland. You can read more about the film and the time/location here: http://
JOB: Interpreter for Origami Presentation
The Consulate General of Japan in Miami is bringing in an origami specialist who will be doing presentations at local schools. They need an interpreter available to help on the following days in the following locations:
- January 30, 9:30-11:30 (Palmetto High School); 1:00-5:00* (FIU)
- January 31, 9:00-11:00 (Western High School); 1:00 - 3:00 (Nova University)
Interpreter must be fluent in both English and Japanese (at least roughly level JLPT N2). Please send email to info@cgjmia.org if interested with your hourly rate.
Feel free to pass on to interested parties.
Event: Annual Bonenkai at Koume!
Hi Everyone,
It's that time of the year again! We're holding our JETAA Bonenkai on Saturday, Dec 17th (sorry for the short notice).
If you're out of town and would like to come but need a place to stay let me know! I'm working on finding hosts in Miami with free rooms (if you're in Miami and have a free room please let me know at floridajetaa@gmail.com).
Cost: $20 per person (pay-your-own-drinks and tip not included)
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Koume Japanese Restaurants, 11905 W. Sunrise Blvd, Plantation, Fl (In the shopping center with PetSmart in the South East corner of the parking lot).
954-577-9277
RSVP to wlo01@hotmail.com
by 5 PM on Wednesday, Dec 14th.
JETs and Friends of JETs welcome!
**Please note that you must RSVP by email to guarantee your spot.**
If you're a member of the Facebook group and want to RSVP or see who else is
going, you can view the event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/288915161145589/
Hope to see you there!
Bahia
--
President JETAAFL
Job/Teacher Training: Urban Teacher Center (UTC)
The following is from Kerry Swarr, Director of Human Capital at Urban Teacher Center:
The Urban Teacher Center (UTC) is a four-year, alternative teacher preparation program that operates in the Washington, DC region (and soon in additional cities). Each cohort participates in an intensive year-long residency, followed by a three-year teaching commitment in a high-need urban elementary, middle or high school. UTC residents prepare to become highly competent teachers; in addition to the clinical experience, they also enroll in a Master’s of Education program that is directly relevant to the urban teacher. All UTC teachers are part of an unprecedented commitment to student performance: only those who can demonstrate that they can improve student learning will complete the program. Over time, UTC teachers will be among the most expert and results-oriented in the nation. For more information, visit us on the web at www.urbanteachercenter.org.
Our upcoming application deadlines for the 2012-13 school year are: October 15, 2011, December 15, 2011, February 15, 2012, April 15, 2012 and May 15, 2012. The program for the 2012-2013 school year will begin in late June 2012. The application is available via the UTC website at www.urbanteachercenter.org.
Life After the B.O.E. – Now Available!
All JETs keenly remember the moment when they realized their JET experience was not going to be exactly what they had envisioned: the cold apartments, the rural countryside, the plethora of food definitely NOT provided at your favorite Japanese restaurant back home... But there were amazing moments, too, such as making a breakthrough with a student, finally feeling like a useful member of your teaching staff, and realizing that your Japanese town or city would always have a place in your heart.
Toronto-based artist David Namisato has been delighting the JETAA community for years with his monthly "Life After the B.O.E" web comics, which perfectly capture the wonderfully bizarre range of emotions and situations JETs experience. And now they're available in book form (and with several more brand new comics!).
Available at Amazon.com and CreateSpace, consider picking one up for yourself or for a fellow JET in your life!
For Fukui’s Sake – A new novel by a JET alum
A JET alumni named Sam Baldwin recently released a novel of his experiences as a JET in rural Japan. Please check out the blurb below and read more on his site ForFukuisSake.com.
For Fukui's Sake: two years in rural Japan - by Sam Baldwin - ForFukuisSake.com
Far from the high-tech, high-rise of the super-cities, there lies another Japan.
A Japan where snakes slither down school corridors, where bears prowl dark forests and where Westerners are still regarded as curious creatures. Welcome to the world of the inaka – the Japanese countryside.
Unhappily employed in the UK, Sam Baldwin decides to make a big change. Saying sayonara to laboratory life, he takes a job as an English teacher in a small, rural Japanese town that no one – the Japanese included – has ever heard of.
Arriving in Fukui, where there’s ‘little reason to linger’ according to the guidebook, at first he wonders why he left England. But as he slowly settles in to his unfamiliar new home, Sam befriends a colourful cast of locals and begins to discover the secrets of this little known region.
Helped by headmasters, housewives and Himalayan mountain climbers, he immerses himself in a Japan still clutching its pastoral past and uncovers a landscape of lonely lakes, rice fields and lush mountain forests. Joining a master drummer’s taiko class, skiing over paddies and learning how to sharpen samurai swords, along the way Sam encounters farmers, fishermen and foreigners behaving badly.
Exploring Japan’s culture and cuisine, as well as its wild places and wildlife, For Fukui’s Sake is an adventurous, humorous and sometimes poignant insight into the frustrations and fascinations that face an outsider living in small town, backcountry Japan.
If you know of any other alumni projects that might be of interests to other JET alumni or current JET participants please comment below.
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