Daniel- HIPPO Intern 2012-2013

HIPPO Intern 2012-2013　(Daniel)

I think that my participation in various high school plays, yearly church Christmas plays, and innumerable high-school English class presentations have finally payed off!

I am constantly being asked to present, speak, and even MC at HIPPO events. These events range from a small to a very large number of audience members. The topics that I speak about include my experience of being a HIPPO intern, my discoveries while learning Japanese, living in a multicultural and multilingual environment, American culture and lifestyle, or any other topics that may be related.

Presenting to future year-long exchange students about the importance of living in another country.

Speaking about learning Japanese at my welcome party in Ota-ku.

I was a fellow at the Daigakuse Family. Leading everyone in my favorite "Song and Dance Activity" - Shampoo SADA!

I was an MC at event HIPPO hosted for Southeast Asian youth on the SSEAYP program. I spoke about my first encounter with the HIPPO as well as the importance of enhancing our world view by learning the languages of our neighbors.

Also, some exciting news! HIPPO is sending me to Osaka soon to conduct a few English interviews for future year-long exchange students. I'm pretty excited. Not only are English interviews a fun part of being an intern, but Osaka is well-known for its special foods. I'm planning eat lots of takoyaki! [fried octopus, mmm...]

A photo of Mount Fuji that I took on the way to work. Osaka is somewhere in that general direction.

VAMANOS!

Comments

Daniel- こにちわ！！

こにちわ！！　(Daniel) Hello,こにちわ, bonjour, Привет ! My name is Daniel Panasenko, and I am the 2012-2013 LEX intern in the Hippo office in Tokyo. I am from Sacramento, California, although originally from Dnipropetrovs'k, Ukraine. I first came across LEX and Hippo when I came to Japan with People to People in 2009. I was hosted by members of the Hippo Family Club for four days, and I enjoyed the experience so much, that I came back to work for Hippo as an intern. Although I am fairly new to Hippo, I have been received warmly and welcomed into the Hippo family. Everyone at the office and at the family clubs are very kind, supportive, and incredibly patient as I unintentionally butcher their language. As the year progresses, I will blog about my experiences in Japan as well as my insights into the language and culture. Although I am a bit overwhelmed by the novelty of the lifestyle and language, but I am more than happy to be here, making fascinating new discoveri...

Michael- Koto-ku Community Festival

Koto-Ku Community Festival Wow! It seems like just yesterday that I was writing my last blog post, but yet it was really 2 weeks! I have been told it has gotten a lot colder in the U.S., so I should probably tell you I've only worn a light jacket once so far...And that was when the latest typhoon was offshore and pulling wind down from Russia. Otherwise, it has been amazing weather here. As always, I've been doing a lot, but I will talk about one thing I really enjoyed. I worked at a Hippo booth at my community festival. The festival was held over the weekend a week ago at Kiba Park near my home. The park is quite large and known for the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, but mostly it's cool because it has a suspension bridge over a canal in the middle. The event was quite exciting for me as it was also my first Japanese festival. I want to say it was a mix between a flea market and a trade show. There were many tents set up in many different areas. Booths varied a...

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