About

Ah, so the blurb on the home page wasn’t enough for you?  Well, all right…

I grew up in Somerdale, New Jersey and attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA.  In 2009, Dickinson handed me a very expensive piece of paper explaining that I earned a bachelor’s degree in English and East Asian Studies.

I studied Japanese in college and fell in love with it, which led me to study abroad at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan, where this blog was born, sporadically updated, and then left to die.  I have revived it and retooled the layout in the hopes that no one will recognize it or associate it with “that blog they read once that was okay for a month.”  But I absolutely refuse to change names to protect the guilty.  That Jeff guy is a real jerk; abandoning a perfectly good blog like that…

I want to use Japanese in whatever career I choose, so naturally I decided to come to Japan to teach English.  By “naturally,” I mean “no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”  I will be using Japanese to survive, however, and I want to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (日本語能力試験) in December to put a number on my skills, which helps when you’re trying to make a career out of speaking a foreign language.  Ultimately I’d like to make a career out of translation, if not interpretation, and I hope this blog will provide a window into what that process entails, or at least sheds some light on one possible path toward that goal.

My interests (because I know you can’t wait to hear all about them) include literature of any genre and language I can read (Japanese or English); music from anywhere, with the exception of most American country music; bike rides; cooking; Japanese baseball; video games; Japanese baseball video games; movies; and hugs.

But enough about me.  Go read my blog about me—in Japan!

ようこそ, and enjoy your stay.

—Jeff