Welcome!

As I may have mentioned before, I am studding for the level 3 Japanese test. I have a practice test book now and have gone through it. It is kind of strange! There are parts where I think, "Wow. This is easy. I'll have no trouble." But, there are other sections where I think more like this: "I'm doomed." Well, the test is in December so I still have lots of time to devote to study.

As I am applying to Japanese companies, I have to make a Japanese resume. It is very difficult! Japanese resumes are different from western resumes as they must be hand-written. One mistake, and you have to start over. This was frustrating on my first go as I made a mistake with the dates I went to high school. Japanese resumes must use the Japanese calendar. (This is usually Heisei and Showa. This year is Heisei 15.) Of course, the resume must be written in Japanese as well. There is a formal style to this. I got some help writing this and made a draft on a computer. I copied the resume (by hand) onto the resume form. It was a strange experience because I didn't know all of the characters I was writing. Of course I understood the overall meaning, but was lost on some of the words. What an odd experience!

We took a trip about a month ago to a very pretty place in Chiba. I am not going to devote a lot of text to it, but, I wanted to include a pretty picture. I will say this: we started walking from a mountain top and stopped walking when we could touch the ocean's water.