Experience, Experience, Experience

If I want to level up from JET Wannabe to JET Participant, I need the experience to earn that level. Every gamer knows about leveling up of some sort. Levels have prerequisites, new skills require old skills. The basic class requirement for JET Participants are a Bachelor's Degree (high Int, I suppose). This is misleading because there are a lot of needed skills to make the final class-change. You also need to be interested in cultural exchange and in Japan (this seems like Wis to me) and pass an interview (definitely Cha). But, no matter the specific prerequisites, leveling up is all about the experience.

So, now I'm done with my absurd D&D/RPG paragraph. But seriously, experience. Experience with a capital E. Sure, plenty of people get chosen that may not have actual classroom teaching experience and maybe even lack job experience, but these things make you look good. At least, I think I look good wearing all my experience (sorry, if you are reading this, I am apparently in a strange mood and thus am writing strange things). Get experience where you can and realize that even small experience is experience (enough 5pt exp moments eventually equals 100pts and so-on and so-forth).

I am an English major (graduating on Saturday!!!!! w00t!) and a Secondary Ed minor. I have wanted to teach since I was just under three-years-old. Literally, I walked out of the first day of preschool and told my mum that I'm going to be a teacher. I was awesome. Anyways, this gives me some experience, but not that much. This means that I am a pro at grammar and editing and English (well, this is what it should mean). I'm in love with grammar. If I have poor grammar somewhere, it's because I was either super lazy or it was actually intentional (yeah 1337 and internetspeak make me look n00bish in my writing sometimes... on the computer anyways). So, Grammar & Style was my favorite course for English; I'm weird. Then I have Ed classes. Well, they are and are not as useful as they might seem. Honestly? Observation hours are a lot of watching and rarely interacting. Lesson and unit plans in class are not usually executed, so how do we know if they are actually any good?

But! There is hope for me yet! I do have an internship. I recommend boring hours of interning to everyone. Mine is for college credit and volunteerism. I started a Writing Center at my high school. Fortunately, I started it, so it also shows initiative, leadership, and perseverance. Well, perseverance because parts of it have been a flop. ^^; Working with students is good, working with English is good, and working in a high school is good.

This is not enough. At least, I want more experience before I get to level my stats up and celebrate becoming a JET Participant. (Every time I type this, I sort of want to go Pokemon about it... and say I evolve into it... Weird morning...) So, I'm looking for more things to do. I've found a few interesting programs for TESOL certification Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. I have to figure out exactly what I'm going to do, but I really want to do this... I'm super interested in teaching non-English speakers and I think it's really important to be able to do this no matter where I end up teaching, at home or Japan.

I'm also looking to find a way to volunteer my time as a writing or English tutor or other teaching things. As well as find work that is somewhat relevant. Conveniently, any work that I WANT to do is fairly relevant because I want to teach. So, that's where that is at. I'm sorry this post rambled so much... I'm trying to keep things useful and semi-entertaining; today, I seem to just be a bit crazy...