Have you seen anything weird lately?
I live in Japan. What do you think?
Ask @carlycarbonate
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If you could own any building in the world, which one would it be?
LaForet or Shibuya 109 n_~
Favorite textbook to kill bugs with?
The only ones I have.... either New Horizon or Hi Friends, both English books for Japanese students.
Related users
what are the best and worst parts of living/working in japan?
I guess it depends on your job/language abilities etc. but for me personally...
Best parts are being able to experience another culture in a variety of ways and the opportunity to learn another language through immersion. I like being around my students too and learning from them as well as sharing my culture. I like having access to clothing and other products that I like that are more difficult to access in America. Everything is so cute. I love the food here. In general, every day is pretty different and exciting for me and I like that change compared to living at home where every day was a rather similar experience.
Worst parts are not being able to read everything and entirely understand things around you. It's kind of like being a kid again. It's really inconvenient and makes simple things 100x more complicated. For example, when I need to buy a certain product like a cosmetic, I don't know most of the brands and I can't read all of the packaging to ever know which product might be best suited for me. It's more difficult for me to find other paid work here because I'm not fluent in Japanese so my options for work are limited. I personally am not a fan of business culture anywhere and Japan has more business rules than America does so I don't love that. It's not my culture and I'm a guest here so I feel like it's not really my place to pick on certain aspects of it that I don't like so I'll just leave that as a general statement. Fortunately it's not as if I have to deal with the worst of it in my job anyway. Sometimes I like that my appearance makes me stand out because it's very different from my experiences at home, but it does get annoying when people keep giving me weird looks or say rude things about me and think I can't understand them.
Besides that... I hate that having roaches in your apartment here is to be expected... that's just not cool. I also miss having a normal bed with a mattress. I was spoiled by NYC subways so the fact that trains here don't run all night can be an inconvenience. My feet are rather large compared to most people who live in Japan so it can be difficult to find shoes that fit. It's hard to make friends where I live, again likely a result of the language barrier. I think that's easier to do if you're a student here. This can be frustrating too because if I ever need someone to talk to, most of my friends are in American time zones with a 13 hour time difference. As much as I love the food here, I'm a pescatarian so I get frustrated at some food options here because vegetarian options are far more limited compared to in America. For example, I don't see any vegetarian "meat" options for sale in grocery stores nor are there really any options to substitute tofu for meat on menus.
I wrote way more negatives than positives but I think it's because a lot of the negative things are more interesting answers. Living here is definitely a really fun experience though I promise!!
Best parts are being able to experience another culture in a variety of ways and the opportunity to learn another language through immersion. I like being around my students too and learning from them as well as sharing my culture. I like having access to clothing and other products that I like that are more difficult to access in America. Everything is so cute. I love the food here. In general, every day is pretty different and exciting for me and I like that change compared to living at home where every day was a rather similar experience.
Worst parts are not being able to read everything and entirely understand things around you. It's kind of like being a kid again. It's really inconvenient and makes simple things 100x more complicated. For example, when I need to buy a certain product like a cosmetic, I don't know most of the brands and I can't read all of the packaging to ever know which product might be best suited for me. It's more difficult for me to find other paid work here because I'm not fluent in Japanese so my options for work are limited. I personally am not a fan of business culture anywhere and Japan has more business rules than America does so I don't love that. It's not my culture and I'm a guest here so I feel like it's not really my place to pick on certain aspects of it that I don't like so I'll just leave that as a general statement. Fortunately it's not as if I have to deal with the worst of it in my job anyway. Sometimes I like that my appearance makes me stand out because it's very different from my experiences at home, but it does get annoying when people keep giving me weird looks or say rude things about me and think I can't understand them.
Besides that... I hate that having roaches in your apartment here is to be expected... that's just not cool. I also miss having a normal bed with a mattress. I was spoiled by NYC subways so the fact that trains here don't run all night can be an inconvenience. My feet are rather large compared to most people who live in Japan so it can be difficult to find shoes that fit. It's hard to make friends where I live, again likely a result of the language barrier. I think that's easier to do if you're a student here. This can be frustrating too because if I ever need someone to talk to, most of my friends are in American time zones with a 13 hour time difference. As much as I love the food here, I'm a pescatarian so I get frustrated at some food options here because vegetarian options are far more limited compared to in America. For example, I don't see any vegetarian "meat" options for sale in grocery stores nor are there really any options to substitute tofu for meat on menus.
I wrote way more negatives than positives but I think it's because a lot of the negative things are more interesting answers. Living here is definitely a really fun experience though I promise!!
Presents, presents, presents :D
Is that something that's happening?
Birthday soon?
July 17th! What about it?
Candy you miss the most from overseas?
I actually don't like American candy that much! I never really bought it BUT I do love York Peppermint Patties so.... that would have to be my answer.
If you could hug anyone right now, who would it be?
We're going to crowd source your coffee and cute outfit cravings, hehe
Who is we!? There's more than one of you?
Ahh I would feel so bad accepting any gifts from someone.
But if you reaaaaaally compelled to, I won't stop you: carlycarbonate(at)gmail.com
I want to know who you are so I can thank you. (´•͈ुω•͈ू`)
Ahh I would feel so bad accepting any gifts from someone.
But if you reaaaaaally compelled to, I won't stop you: carlycarbonate(at)gmail.com
I want to know who you are so I can thank you. (´•͈ुω•͈ू`)
do u have any recs for apps and tools to learn japanese?
First thing is to memorize all the letters (hiragana and katakana) and familiarize yourself with some basic Japanese. You can use a book like the Genki series which helped me a lot. And then I would make a point to begin studying Kanji using a SRS app such as Anki. SRS apps use flashcards for studying and space them out over a certain period of time so that you can memorize them better. You can download a deck of flashcards with every kanji in it and the app creates graphs of your progress. My boyfriend used that to learn all the Kanji and then made a deck with random sentences he found in books and got really good at Japanese that way. I like learning how grammar structures work though so I use the textbooks a lot.
I think immersion is really important too which is why I came to Japan so I can actually use the language every day. Try listening to some Japanese music and watching Japanese TV too to supplement your studies. I hope this helps~ n_n
I think immersion is really important too which is why I came to Japan so I can actually use the language every day. Try listening to some Japanese music and watching Japanese TV too to supplement your studies. I hope this helps~ n_n
Do you have a PayPal, so we can help satisfy your Japanese Starbucks coffee cravings?
Oh my god who are you sweet angel???
Ya I do but it doesn't connect to my JP bank account because it's like a bank account for people from the stone age.
Ya I do but it doesn't connect to my JP bank account because it's like a bank account for people from the stone age.
Do you make a good salary as an English teacher in Japan? How did you find the company that allowed you to become an English teacher?
My salary isn't so bad but any salary feels terrible to me because I have student loans and want to buy so many cute things. It never feels like enough. u_u;
If you look at the website for a recruiting company, it usually gives you a breakdown of the salary... at least my company does.
I found the company, Interac, through my boyfriend who had done a lot of Google searching on opportunities to teach in Japan. There are several companies you can work for that usually fall within 2 categories: public school teaching or eikaiwa (conversation school)
If you haven't seen my blog post about it, maybe reading it could help answer some questions: http://carlycarbonate.blogspot.jp/2014/04/so-you-want-to-teach-in-japan-huh.html
I hope this helps! :)
If you look at the website for a recruiting company, it usually gives you a breakdown of the salary... at least my company does.
I found the company, Interac, through my boyfriend who had done a lot of Google searching on opportunities to teach in Japan. There are several companies you can work for that usually fall within 2 categories: public school teaching or eikaiwa (conversation school)
If you haven't seen my blog post about it, maybe reading it could help answer some questions: http://carlycarbonate.blogspot.jp/2014/04/so-you-want-to-teach-in-japan-huh.html
I hope this helps! :)
Are you a city or a nature person?
i need to be near a city so i can keep occupied but i love nature too so i like being able to access both.
If you could have any view from your home, what would it be?
There's a nice view in my city of the ocean and mountains from a higher altitude and all the wonderful variations of Mt. Fuji so maybe either one of those!
What's the most overrated tourist attraction?
Times Square.
you're a curvy girl, I'd imagine strapless would look good on you
It's not that different from wearing a dress with straps I feel like
for real though you're super cute and I'm really jealous of how cute you are
Thank you but I'm sure you're very cute too!
true, there's not as much holding it up from the bottom, but it's also on "firmer ground" (so to speak) to begin with, and it can slip a little longer without being a noticeable problem. There's also less of a risk of spillage.
Yeah I suppose. I dunno i just like the security of straps. :P
I've never had an issue with strapless, actually, but then again I'm small chested...
I almost feel like that would be worse because there's nothing holding it up?
I've never heard of optional strapless dresses oddly enough!
You can remove the straps on them so yeah that's it.
what do you find annoying about strapless dresses? Personally I've always found them fun to wear
I actually have 2 Betsey Johnson dresses that are optionally strapless so I wear them that way sometimes but it just gets annoying, depending on the dress, if I have to keep making sure it's not falling down in some way. Obviously I have no opinions about other people who wear them. My feelings about them are based on my personal experiences.
If you want to attach another photo, you can do it here!
I don't have a full photo of this outfit but...
what are your thoughts on strapless dresses?
They're kind of annoying to wear.
skirts or pants?
Pants when it's cold / skirt when it's warm enough
how does what you wear regularly compare to lingerie?
I don't know why you think my undergarments are your business but I don't think this needs to be public information.
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