60000 yen bill..!?

Many prefectural ALTs may have received a bill for a significant amount of money (~60000 yen or so) from your supervisors earlier this month. This bill is for all your travel expenses in Tokyo...

the two nights in the Keio Plaza, airfare and transportation from Tokyo to your homes as well as luggage delivery costs.

First the bad news: Yes indeed, you have to pay this bill yourself.

Now the good news: The prefecture will deposit money in your bank accounts directly to cover the cost of the bill.

I realize this seems backward to most of you, but that's how it works in this instance!

How to pay for your Tokyo Expenses

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• You need to pay the amount in full by furikomi (wire transfer) to the account listed on the bill by September 14th.
• The prefecture will deposit an amount of money to cover most of the bill by September 14th.
• You will use this money to pay the bill. However, please note that you will have to cover the costs of transporting your check in luggage from the airport to your house. Usually this is a small amount of money, so don't stress.
• Even with the luggage delivery expense, most JETs usually end up with a little bit of money left over (i.e. the amount deposited is more than the amount you have to pay).
• If you don't know how to do a furikomi please ask your supervisor or office staff.
• Remember that you can only do a furikomi until 3pm on a weekday!!! So don't leave this for September 14th after you get done with work - you won't be able to do a furikomi at 4:30 pm!

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One Shot Project

The One Shot Project crew's hard earned efforts resulted in a tremendous gallery showing earlier this year. Now they're happy to announce the online presence of the One Shot Project. If you missed it the first time - or even if you just want to see it again in all its digital glory, head over to the site and check it out!

The site will be up until the end of October, so pass the word and don't delay!

Japanese Proficiency Exam

This year's Japanese proficiency exam will be held in Toyama (for Ishikawa JETs unless you have a reason to go elsewhere) on December 4th (sunday). The deadline for submission of the application has already passed (September 5th) but you can still submit late applications until October 14th (the price goes up from 5500 yen to 8500 yen). You can pick up applications at any major bookstore.

The Meguro Language Center has a tremendous wealth of freely downloadable resources extremely useful for those interested in studying for the proficiency exam. You can download the entire set of kanji lists for the different levels, all sorts of grammer and vocabulary study sheets and much much more. I cannot recommend this site enough, and best of all - it's completely free!

For more information on the Japanese Proficiency exam, check the relevant thread over on the forums.

Okay, that's it for now. Enjoy the last days of summer!!

-Panda