[OsakaPapa]

Whoa, this thread lit up again since I've last checked! :O I really appreciate all the information on the SoP, as I know I'll be stressing about this a lot in a short time. I really think that being sincere will definitely help your cause. I think after a certain point, it really becomes obvious that you're trying too hard, or being insincere about telling them exactly what they want to hear.

Another really good point about not focusing too much about your own career aspirations and goals. While being an ESL educator IS my career choice (I'm a Linguistics major with TESL cert.), I'm not going to go on and on about how great this is for my career, but talk a lot more about how my ESL education training and skills can help my students. Honestly, without reading this, I probably would have talked too much about how perfect this program is for ME, and not as much about the students.

I know that my study abroad term in Japan will really help support my cause at making them believe I'm adaptable and flexible, but I'm really not sure how much I should go into it. Other then mentioning the obvious fact that it happened, I'm not too sure how much more I should go into it.

Wargh so much to think about! XD

I also need to look more into the areas I want to live in..I know Nishinomiya-shi in Hyogo-ken is my first choice, and Kobe is my second (sister city), but for my third choice...I'm still really up in the air. I was thinking Sakai-shi in Osaka-fu. I would never put down Osaka City (despite how much I love it there), but yeah, as you can see, these places are all pretty close. I really wonder if they will look down on that for some reason, because they know everyone puts down Osaka City, and these are all close to it. From what I've seen, a lot of people put down places in all different areas of the country, which is making me think that maybe I should find another area for my third place. That way if they can't find me a place in Hyogo-ken or Osaka-fu, they will have another prefecture to look in to instead of just throwing me in any place in the country. While I know that can happen anyway, I'd like to think they at least TRY to get you near somewhere you listed. Any thoughts on this former JETs?