Aspiring JETs Singapore edition 2012

[rinforest]

Hmmm.. this link http://ajet.net/outstanding-educators-p ... ticipants/ says that newly accepted JETs can apply, whereas this link http://www.jetprogramme.org/e/news/tefl.html states the eligibility criteria is for the applicant to be 'Be scheduled for reappointment in 2012-2013'

Both links are for different things.
The first link is a discount on the TEFL course offered to all JET participants by ITTT. You can find more info about ITTT at their website http://www.teflonline.net/. Seems that all you need is a JET number, so you can apply for it now if you think it'll be useful.
The second link is a grant given to current JETs who are recontracting and planning to do an online TEFL course. That probably means you can sign up for it next year if you recontract.

The best scenario would be to get the grant for next year to take the ITTT course to save money! lol

I have a couple of textbooks and some notes from my CELTA course, so if anyone wants to take a look at them, I can bring them for a meetup or something.

[teabot]

By the way, I'm posted to Shizuoka-ken (heard that it's quite a popular choice amongst Singaporeans...?) and from the Alumni website, seems like we're one of the last few to get contacted by predecessors/CO... Any other lucky ALTs joining me, just hollar~!

hi! welcome to Shizuoka!! i'm not sure if i would say there are many Singaporeans here (unless you meant that many Singaporeans want to live here?), i'm pretty sure i know all 3 of them. lol (there might be one or two more i'm not aware of, though?) Shizuoka is an awesome placement, though. :] not sure if you've posted in the regional info thread here or joined the fb group, but if you have any questions i can try to answer. (i'm municipal, so there are some fairly significant differences in my position/situation, though i do know a little bit about some prefectural situations.)

edit: as for predecessors, i'm honestly not really sure if anyone knows yet! if they do, i haven't heard about it. i don't personally know anyone who's leaving prefecturally, though... last i heard the municipal people leaving still don't know anything about successors.

[Japancolors]

if anyone is interested in starting a Japanese study group (especially for those who might not have studied much Japanese before), let me know!

me! i would LOVE a study group. haven't used japanese in years!

Let me know the time and date if you are organising one. As long as I don't have work that day, I will come.

[egrzx925]

egrzx925, have you joined the Kobe JET group? hopefully we can find our preds there!
and yes, i will be making use of the excellent transportation system in Kobe to run all over Japan!

btw, everyone else received your stuff from the embassy? if anyone is interested in starting a Japanese study group (especially for those who might not have studied much Japanese before), let me know!

.
My goodness.I think I joined the wrong group. Went to join Kobe city jets. Thanks for the info

[joyce]

Hello everybody!
I'm new here, I was upgraded from an alternate last Monday. Was ecstatic when I got the call from Tina. Like panduhmonium,I'm still waiting for placement. However, I'm still feeling a tad unsure but THIS IS IT right? Haha...that's because I haven't got any official letters through the mail but I did receive an email from Tina regarding the upgrade and the schedule of events. Is it the same for you, panduhmonium?

[rinforest]

whee, congrats, joyce! announce your placement here when you know

[lovejapan83]

Congrats to all Singaporean JETs 2012! Hope you peeps get your preferred placements!

And to those who are posted to Kobe city, Welcome to Our Lovely City! Too bad I will be leaving before you peeps reach here But Kobe is a totally awesome place to stay! Its situated such that you can travel around Kansai really easily (Kyoto is 1 h away, Osaka is just 30 min). Kobe feels kinda like Singapore in a lot of ways. It is situated by the harbor, and you can fly to other parts of Japan easily via Skymark from Kobe Airport. Dun worry too much about bringing food stuff, cos the supermarket here is really well stocked, and there are many foreign food stores, so you can get chicken rice sauce mix even.

Be prepared for the really hot & humid summer though. It felt worse than Singapore when I first came last year Especially bcos of the energy saving measures. Anyway, feel free to ask away if you have any questions. Yokoso Japan!

[egrzx925]

Congrats to all Singaporean JETs 2012! Hope you peeps get your preferred placements!

And to those who are posted to Kobe city, Welcome to Our Lovely City! Too bad I will be leaving before you peeps reach here But Kobe is a totally awesome place to stay! Its situated such that you can travel around Kansai really easily (Kyoto is 1 h away, Osaka is just 30 min). Kobe feels kinda like Singapore in a lot of ways. It is situated by the harbor, and you can fly to other parts of Japan easily via Skymark from Kobe Airport. Dun worry too much about bringing food stuff, cos the supermarket here is really well stocked, and there are many foreign food stores, so you can get chicken rice sauce mix even.

Be prepared for the really hot & humid summer though. It felt worse than Singapore when I first came last year Especially bcos of the energy saving measures. Anyway, feel free to ask away if you have any questions. Yokoso Japan!

Great! Thanks for the information. I didn't expect there r Singaporean jets in Kobe city. U guys must b doing a great job that they decided to have more this year

[panduhmonium]

Hello everybody!
I'm new here, I was upgraded from an alternate last Monday. Was ecstatic when I got the call from Tina. Like panduhmonium,I'm still waiting for placement. However, I'm still feeling a tad unsure but THIS IS IT right? Haha...that's because I haven't got any official letters through the mail but I did receive an email from Tina regarding the upgrade and the schedule of events. Is it the same for you, panduhmonium?

Hey there Joyce, congratulations! Yes, I think it is official hehe and yup, I've only received an email about having been upgraded and the schedule. For some reason, I was under the impression we wouldn't leave till end of August so I was when I saw that the departure date was Aug 05. I had better get a second pair of eyes to help look over the contract LOL!
Speaking of contracts, can anyone tell me whether you receive contracts together with placement info or after?

[Tomereader]

Congrats to all Singaporean JETs 2012! Hope you peeps get your preferred placements!

And to those who are posted to Kobe city, Welcome to Our Lovely City! Too bad I will be leaving before you peeps reach here But Kobe is a totally awesome place to stay! Its situated such that you can travel around Kansai really easily (Kyoto is 1 h away, Osaka is just 30 min). Kobe feels kinda like Singapore in a lot of ways. It is situated by the harbor, and you can fly to other parts of Japan easily via Skymark from Kobe Airport. Dun worry too much about bringing food stuff, cos the supermarket here is really well stocked, and there are many foreign food stores, so you can get chicken rice sauce mix even.

Be prepared for the really hot & humid summer though. It felt worse than Singapore when I first came last year Especially bcos of the energy saving measures. Anyway, feel free to ask away if you have any questions. Yokoso Japan!

lovejapan83, fancy seeing you here! See you this weekend! There were two SG JETs sent to Kobe last year! Singaporeans might have a reputation for being enthusaistic and hardworking, hahaha. We are well-trained by the Singapore work culture!

Also, my JTEs have told me my accent is easier to understand than western countries' English accent, so it helps. I'm talking about our 'international' accent, of course. We are insidiously spreading Singlish around though. MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHA.

[Tomereader]

Oh yes, please start collecting all your SG paraphernalia. Bak kwa in small packets for your teachers (spicy and non spicy ones - some Japanese like spicy food), and please contact MICA to tell them that you are JETs appointed as cultural ambassadors wanting to spread the might and fame of Singapore worldwide and they might give you some REALLY CUTE collar pins / tote bags / post cards etc to bring over!

Last year, one really resourceful JET managed to get badges and collar pins from MICA for ALL 25 (i think it was over 50 pins for each of us!) of us going to Japan and I can't tell you how much it helped! My students (SHS) love them and some even choose the pins over bak kwa.

[lovejapan83]

Congrats to all Singaporean JETs 2012! Hope you peeps get your preferred placements!

And to those who are posted to Kobe city, Welcome to Our Lovely City! Too bad I will be leaving before you peeps reach here But Kobe is a totally awesome place to stay! Its situated such that you can travel around Kansai really easily (Kyoto is 1 h away, Osaka is just 30 min). Kobe feels kinda like Singapore in a lot of ways. It is situated by the harbor, and you can fly to other parts of Japan easily via Skymark from Kobe Airport. Dun worry too much about bringing food stuff, cos the supermarket here is really well stocked, and there are many foreign food stores, so you can get chicken rice sauce mix even.

Be prepared for the really hot & humid summer though. It felt worse than Singapore when I first came last year Especially bcos of the energy saving measures. Anyway, feel free to ask away if you have any questions. Yokoso Japan!

lovejapan83, fancy seeing you here! See you this weekend! There were two SG JETs sent to Kobe last year! Singaporeans might have a reputation for being enthusaistic and hardworking, hahaha. We are well-trained by the Singapore work culture!

Also, my JTEs have told me my accent is easier to understand than western countries' English accent, so it helps. I'm talking about our 'international' accent, of course. We are insidiously spreading Singlish around though. MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHA.

Haha.. Well only bcos you told me 3 Singaporean JETS were coming to Kobe this year Really surprised to hear that, especially since our contingent is one of the smallest. Are you guys city JETs or prefectural JETs? Totally agree with the statement about our good reputation Singaporean JETs are at a slight advantage here bcos we have a similar work culture. So Ganbatte! Keep up our good rep

I gave some of the teachers PrimaTaste mixes as omiyage. They seemed to like them a lot too So you guys might consider them as omiyages too, sort of an introduction to Singaporean food. But remember to include simple translations for the cooking instructions. Can talk to the teachers more this way also

Tomereader san, see you this Saturday then! I am still thinking about my pirate costume.. I am determined to be a cool looking Captain Sparrow

[rinforest]

Thanks for the idea, Tomereader. I've written to MICA to ask about the possibility of pins and badges, and just received their standard reply email (Please wait 3 working days blah blah blah ) Hopefully they'll be nice and give us some this year as well.

lovejapan83, so far the 3 of us going to Kobe are all city JETs. I don't know about the others, but I'm hoping Kobe/Hyogo will live up to its reputation for being the first CO to contact the new JETs!

btw, for the Japanese study group, I'm thinking about Sunday after 2pm at Liang Court Starbucks. Quite quiet, and with the large number of Japanese people around there, it's quite conducive for Japanese studies. (I used to go there when I was preparing for the JLPT. also, free wifi! ) Anyone has any other suggestions?

[Tomereader]

Go heavy on the eyeliner, lovejapan83. Let's rock out the pirate party!

Oh yeah, kaya is a good omiyage too. And merlion chocolate or biscuits. Meraion-san is popular with my students, and so is MBS. Download a good version of the SMAP commercial filmed at MBS and use it in your introduction if you have the equipment. And maybe the 2PM MV Put Your Hands Up too. Filmed in Zouk, y'all! The first 10 seconds is good though, can see pretty sunny Singapore. Then after that... can cut already.

Teach them merlion as a verb, ok? Haha.

[rinforest]

lol! You reminded me of this commercial which made me rofl when i first watched it. We should all consider using this in our introduction! (There's even subtitles!)