Well after getting the physical done on Thursday afternoon, I mailed in my acceptance to JET on Friday. Ended up going to a little urgent care place to get the physical so I could get it done quickly and not wait a week or two for an appointment (since the acceptance is due by the 28th). Basically JET provides a health questionnaire for the doc to fill out, detailing the usual physical stuff, plus the result of a chest x-ray (to check for TB) and basic health related urinalysis (no drug test or the like). Really, they want to be assured you won’t bring a plague to the school or create embarrassment by keeling over. Came to a total of $136, tho — ouch.

So, now the third stage of waiting is started, this time to find out where in Japan I’m going. The application allows you to select three preferred prefectures — tho there are many factors involved in placement (about half of them being kinda random) so you never know if you’ll get them or anything even close. Ya could ask for the sun & sand of Okinawa and end up in the snow of Hokaido. Or vise-versa.

I put down as my first choice a large town/small city of about 88,000 called Hatsukaichi, which is a little outside Hiroshima. The schools there and some here in Tucson have had connections such as teacher exchanges, so I figured that it was the closest Tucson has to a sister city in Japan (such relationships can help you get placed, but alas Tucson’s sister city is in the Ukraine…). It also sounds like a pretty nice place, near Hiroshima for a little bit of large city life and Miyajima for scenic views and nature.

Second choice is Nara, which is near Kyoto and Osaka and has lots of history as the original capital. One of the Japanese students who studied aikido with the class I’m in at UA was from there and it looks like it has lots of aikido opportunities, even for English speakers. But it and the area are quite frequent requests by JETs. Third choice was Fukuoka, which sounds nice and is closer to my prefered climate (kinda wondered if I should have put down Miyazaki on the south end of Kyuushuu, since its more-or-less the same latitude as Tucson, but its really remote).

Anyways, just have to see. Will know in about another month. Then, after that, the final stretch of waiting starts for the actual departure…

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