Coming off an awesome summer where I met a bunch of great new people and spent more time with old friends, I'm going to have to start all over again as I begin my semester abroad in Tokyo, Japan. Looking back, the "Summer of Getting Jacked" was a tremendous success and I know that this is the best, that everyone and I who participated, has ever been. But now it's time to look forward to the future...
The concept I have in my mind is for this to be more of a travel journal/picture driven memo more than a flat out blog, which I think can get boring at times, so look forward to a lot of images sprinkled with some text here and there. To go into more detail, I'll be living in the Akasaka district of Tokyo and taking 5 classes at Temple University in Japan - that's 2 Japanese culture courses, 2 Japanese Econ classes, and Japanese Elements 1 (basic language). To prepare myself for the trip I've taught myself the 2 Japanese phonetic alphabets, Hiragana & Katakana, which will hopefully help in understanding things at first.
This is actually my second time to Japan; my first trip was this past 2008 New Years from Dec 26th 07 until Jan 4th 08. During that vacation with a close friend from high school, we went to a mixed martial arts events called Yarennoka! - which leads me to the title of the blog. Yarennoka roughly translates to "Can't you do it!" as a sort of challenge to ask others, as I am a huge Japanese MMA fan I think the title fits appropriately.
Finally, to close out the inaugural address I'd like to lay out some goals for the upcoming semester:
- Begin to learn the Japanese language from hearing it everyday and studying it in class
- Learn more about Japanese culture and what makes the people tick
- Make friends with the other abroad students and hopefully some locals
- Visit nearby locales such as Seoul, S Korea; Hong Kong; and potentially Australia and Hawaii
- Train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at one of Tokyo's best academies (Paraestra, Axis, or DEEP)
- Fine tune my Squash game and finally get competitive in a tournament
**pictured: Me at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, one of my favorite excursions this summer, I went to the Final rounds of the Men's singles & doubles with a friend from Georgetown.**
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4 comments:
nice blog pete keep it updated and let me know when you get on skype...also i want a shout out in a blog post since that pic is from legg mason have fun
this is the best we've ever been!
Great, I think it's really important to outline your goals and go back to them at the end of the semester as a reflection of sorts.
Fine list of goals. I'm sure you'll accomplish all of them with flying colors.
The Japanese section of NYU's Speaking Freely program has sessions on both Mondays and Tuesdays. I should be able to hammer one of 'em into my schedule. This'll be a fun learning tool for me and great way to communicate with you. (I'm sure this gag-inducing to the average reader. And you're absolutely right, it is.)
And I'm finally... FINALLY gonna get classy and see Renzo. Train hard at DEEP. I'm not takin' those arm bars anymore!
Go wild Petey. No regrets. Have the time of your life.
See ya in Hawaii!
P.S. Sorry this is so late. I was CP time - y'know, colored people time.
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