{"id":4769,"date":"2015-01-14T15:03:25","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T06:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/?p=4769"},"modified":"2015-01-14T15:03:25","modified_gmt":"2015-01-14T06:03:25","slug":"january-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/2015\/01\/january-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"January 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Renewal. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the word that comes to mind after the start of a new year. January 1<sup>st<\/sup> is like the Monday of a new week; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s full of hope, possibilities, and often positivity. It is a time when most are motivated to start doing the things they have wanted to, but haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Sure the weather is a giant hurdle to get over here in Japan, but with the right attitude (and layers) you can be nearly unstoppable. For JETs, January is even more important since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when the decision to return or move on becomes official. Whatever that decision is, make sure you go forward setting yourself up for success. Reflect on what you want to improve on from 2014 and keep an eye out for opportunities in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily this issue has a few things to get your new year started off right and make your future a bit more exciting. Want to start reading more? Join the HAJET Book Club this month on Sunday, Jan 18 (or attend Osaka AJET\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second meeting next month). Are you tired of listening to the same tracks over and over again on your music player? Discover a variety of music from this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s five recommended albums. Better yet, read through the interview with the Tokyo-based indie rock band DYGL. Music not your thing? Try the podcast that caused our language method master, Louie, to step away from the classroom this month and explore the popularity behind <i>Serial<\/i>. If too much change worries you, head to our regular contributors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 sections where zen master Scott writes his first restaurant review, Helen brings you something new from her kitchen, and Brittany shares her time in Korea and shocks us in <i>The Durants<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Getting back to the New Year, I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pretend that I have the answers on how to make a resolution that won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be stopped at the beginning of February, but I will offer a suggestion that at least sounds good in theory (though has no study or experiment backing it). Make a list of things you want to get better at, it can be anything; Japanese, coding, rock climbing, cooking, Skyping with friends and family \u00e2\u20ac\u201c however many you want. Once the list is finished, simply pick one that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to target for 2015 (they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be other years to tackle your other goals). After picking only one, make a commitment to do it once every week. Ideally choose a day where you have a lot of down time \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and once a week isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even asking a lot to do whatever skill it is you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve chosen. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not even putting a time length on how long you should practice or do your activity for. Five minutes, thirty minutes, an hour, just do it. Once a week for one year is 52 times, give or take, that you will have done whatever it is you wanted to improve. Will you be a master afterward? Probably not, but you definitely won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be a complete amateur and who knows, maybe that initial start will snowball into increased motivation where once a week turns into twice or three times a week \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 104 or 156 times you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re practicing! We all know that new skills open up new opportunities and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly what most of us want in a new year. As a friend once said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is no time for wasting any time. This is the end of the line, the definite sign of what we will be someday.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sean Mulvihill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Renewal. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the word that comes to mind after the start of a new year. January 1st is like the Monday of a new week; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s full of hope, possibilities, and often positivity. It is a time when most are motivated to start doing the things they have wanted to, but haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Sure the weather&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":4770,"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":[278,418],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/jan-pic.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}