{"id":431,"date":"2011-02-21T14:26:45","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T05:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/?p=431"},"modified":"2011-06-01T22:40:34","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T13:40:34","slug":"news-from-your-national-ajet-rep-mar-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/2011\/02\/news-from-your-national-ajet-rep-mar-11\/","title":{"rendered":"News from your National AJET Rep: March \u00e2\u20ac\u212211"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Hey Hyogo JETs, hope your winter vacations have been great! Now, I know all the ski trips, Valentine’s chocolate, naked men mel\u00c3\u00a9es and graduation ceremonies are wrapping up, but don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t resign yourself to Facebook and Cracked.com just yet. Not that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m knocking either of them \u00e2\u20ac\u201c heck, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re bookmarked on both of my school computers. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never look at Grimace the same way again…sniffle…<\/p>\n

Anyhoo, in the world of Block 6 we have a fundraiser this month. Conveniently named \u00e2\u20ac\u0153March of Dimes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the plan is simple:<\/p>\n

March 1 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c start collecting 10-yen coins (and get your friends, coworkers and well-wishers to donate!)<\/p>\n

March 31 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c count up your money and send it in to be donated<\/p>\n

See? Simple. The good kind of simple.<\/p>\n

To spice this up a little bit, those participating in the fundraiser are encouraged to join the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153march\u00e2\u20ac\u009d up Inari Mountain on Saturday March 12 (yup, you see where I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going with this). Once we finish the 4km walking course, we will have dinner in Higashiyama and take a more leisurely stroll to see the lanterns in the Gion area. If you live far away or your legs are too gelatinous to take you straight home can join the group going to…*drum roll* SPA WORLD baby! If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never been, just imagine an onsen-version of Disneyland or USJ but smaller-scale, cheaper, and way<\/em> more relaxing. Sorry, no light parades, but if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going on the lantern tour<\/a> you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be covered.<\/p>\n

Proceeds will go to Baan Unrak Children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Village<\/a>, the cornerstone of Go M.A.D. (Make A Difference)<\/a>. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a wonderful orphanage in rural Thailand that aims to be as self-sufficient as possible \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the children help to grow their own food and take care of animals (they even have a puppy nursery) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but the majority of expenses come from health and medical care. Because the children are not legally considered as Thai citizens, health care workers demand a lot of money just to visit the orphanage and see them. I was honoured to volunteer with other JETs this past Christmas at Baan Unrak, which is why I decided to do this fundraiser for this particular organization. Go M.A.D. is an international web-based organization founded and run by teachers on the JET Programme and their Japanese friends. E-mail me to register for this fundraiser!<\/p>\n

In the National AJET Council world, we are currently drafting surveys for the Opinion Exchange this spring with CLAIR and the three ministries (MEXT, MIC, MOFA). Please keep your eyes open for those, especially if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a senior high ALT \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[Teaching] English in English (working title)\u00e2\u20ac\u009d survey will need your input. We are also looking for awesome Japanese teachers, friends, and colleagues to reward for dedication to increasing international awareness within their communities. The AJET Teaching Awards<\/a> and Internationalisation Awards<\/a> Programmes will accept nominations until April 2; fill out the forms and nominate people you know!<\/p>\n

And for those of you who have fewer classes and more free time to peruse the Intermanet, check out the Aussie National AJET Group<\/a> on Facebook and the brand-spanking new forum at that lists all of AJET\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Special Interest Groups<\/a>. New groups include Writers, Muslims in Japan, and Japanese Religion and Meditation.<\/p>\n

That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all from me for now. Stay warm everyone, keep drinking lots of miso soup and matcha tea. Spring is just around the corner…isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? Shoot. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t paying attention on Groundhog Day; I got too wrapped up thinking about the movie. Ah you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be fine. Soup and tea.<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

Sifton<\/p>\n

Block6@ajet.net<\/a><\/p>\n

Sifton is the 2010-11 National AJET Representative for Block 6 (Hyogo, Kyoto and Shiga). She currently resides in Kobe and lives on bubble tea and a secret stash of Tim Horton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coffee from home. Her reactions during suspenseful TV shows, movies and anecdotes are rumoured to be quite entertaining.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey Hyogo JETs, hope your winter vacations have been great! Now, I know all the ski trips, Valentine’s chocolate, naked men mel\u00c3\u00a9es and graduation ceremonies are wrapping up, but don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t resign yourself to Facebook and Cracked.com just yet. Not that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m knocking either of them \u00e2\u20ac\u201c heck, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re bookmarked on both of my school computers. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never look at Grimace the same way again…sniffle…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[120,110],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/NAJET-Logo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}