 |
|||||||
|
Melinda Finkral '00
Konnichiwa and hello from Japan! My name is Melinda Finkral, and I graduated from Augustana in May 2000. I've been living in Japan and teaching junior high school level English in the JET Program since July 2000. It has been a wonderful experience of getting to know the Japanese culture, language, and people. I live about 25 miles northeast of Tokyo, in a city of about 80,000 people. I really love my location, as I border between city and country life and get to experience both. My host city has six junior high schools and twelve elementary schools. I regularly work at two of the junior high schools and visit different elementary schools three or four days a month. At Augie, I was an International Business and Asian Studies double major with a minor in Japanese. I also participated in the Asian foreign term program in the fall of 1998. However, my situation is somewhat of a rare case. Most of the participants I know had never previously studied Japanese, nor traveled to Asia. However, with my experience, I think I had a great advantage to learning Japanese once I got here. I am not fluent, nor even close to it, but I have learned enough to get around the country and have simple conversations with my co-workers. During my free time here, I have had the opportunity to travel both in and out of Japan. I have been to South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and China as well as various other places within Japan. I would recommend the JET Program to anyone looking for a chance to live and work in a foreign country. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Sayonara! Melinda Finkral melindafinkral@hotmail.com |
||||||
