Yearlong English Interviews Life in Japan has been progressing as usual. We are already starting to get ready for many of the exchanges next year. While for the short term programs it is as simple as accepting applications or preparing information sessions, the yearlong program requires a lot from the student. We already accepted the Hippo applications and provided an informational guidance session at the end of October. However, that is just the beginning. In order to be accepted into a foreign program, the student must work hard to complete many more pieces - a Japanese interview, a foreign language interview, a Second Language English Proficiency test, and then after passing all of those they must write applications and essays for the foreign program (many times requiring additional revisions to complete proper language). That is why we are so busy with the program already and why we have so many members on the yearlong team. For the most part, I serve two purposes on the te...

A Little Bit of LEXology One of the projects I have been working on a lot recently is assisting with the translation of the Yo Sakakibara's book into English (the working English title is Sing the Sounds, Children). Pretty much I serve as a native-English, university-educated reader who helps suggest the proper words, with proper connotations based on the LEX philosophy. The translator does an amazing job, but when there are such complex ideas written in a traditional Japanese matter (with added poetic or vague style), it can be hard to know exactly what the philosophy is. We work to make it applicaple to the potential U.S. reader. I also 'attempted' to assist the chairman, Kenshi Suzuki, with a speech at one of our older youth workshops. I say attempted because I don't think I was really much help. His voice was weak that day and we had many international guests so he wanted to whisper to me what he wanted to say and I would use my voice to tell the workshop. I...

Ahn-young! For the last month, I have been trying to enjoy Korean as one of my iniatives to embrace the multilingual aspect of LEX. It also was helpful because I had the opportunity to travel to Korea. My host family had friends who had moved there for an assignment with work, but were moving back to Japan soon. Pretty much, it was their last chance to visit them while they lived in Korea and I was just lucky enough to be able to go with them. It was pretty exciting especially since I heard that I was the first intern to travel on a family vacation out of the country. One of the things I really enjoyed about Korea was its connection to the U.S. I kept thinking how Seoul had many more younger foreigners than Tokyo, but I understood why - Tokyo is really expensive! Also, I found a lot more American companies and products on the shelf. There were just as many Dunkin Dounuts as there were Starbucks. However, Seoul is a city with a double face. Many areas are freshly develope...