"I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here"

Looking towards downtown Hiroshima from my home in Ozu

As of today, it’s been a whole week since I arrived in Hiroshima City. 

HOLY #(@**%# #*$& YO……….. I live in Japan!

Before last week, I should have been nervous. 

I wasn’t. 

Right now, I should be homesick. 

I’m not.

Honestly, the biggest concern on my mind right now is whether I’ll be able to convey a compelling narrative of living and working in a foreign country (I FREAKING LIVE IN JAPAN OMG OMG OMG OMG) to you.

Just a quick introduction for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jerel... which the absolutely most perfect ever name for someone who does not need to be living in Japan. It is a very difficult name for Japanese people to pronounce, so here I go by ジェル (Je-ru) as a nickname. 

Anyway, less than a month ago I graduated from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and moved from Nashville to Hiroshima to work primarily as a radio program personality and DJ for Hiroshima FM, the prefecture (similar a state in the US) radio station.

This opportunity was entirely God-given, as my lifelong dream had been to move to Japan and work here within the second largest music industry in the world, and it could not have been presented to me at a more negative point in my life.

My first salary job is in JAPAN! I’m pretty excited to be here!

Also for those of you getting to know me for the first time, I’m a social media f-a-n-a-t-i-c, and I’ve made my life available across the Internet in a number of different fashions: 

And of course, this blog, “Audible Aprosodia,” which possesses a name probably in need of some explanation.

Audible… able to be heard. I’m inside the brand new (two-story) Starbucks across the river from where I live and there are quite a few people here chillin’ and hanging out. 

Starbucks on the river

I’m in a corner on the second floor and to my left a grandfather is chatting with his daughter and trying to keep his energetic grandson from crawling all over the store. 

In front of me in the middle of the room are two high school girls (I don’t actually know if they’re in high school, all Japanese girls look like they are to me, though) talking excitedly and showing each other their cell phones. 

Next to them, sitting under a pretty hipsterish-looking Starbucks portrait, are two equally hipsterish-looking Japanese guys and a girl, probably talking about the latest Japanese rock band that no one has heard of yet. And I don’t even know what’s going on downstairs, but there’s a lot of commotion there too.

It’s pretty “audible” in here, to say the least.

But there’s one problem: I can barely understand any of these conversations taking place. I’m pretty sure the grandfather is talking to his daughter about what she and his grandson are going to do this weekend, while “high school” girls I think are talking about a Japanese comedy show. I can’t understand any of the exchange occurring between the two older women near the window, nor can I make out the vocabulary of the three hipsters, though I’m sure if they’re as hipster as they look, they must be talking about some show going on tonight.

The word "aprosodia" describes a condition in which a person has difficulty interpreting patterns and rhythms in speech, and as you have likely figured out, I’m living in an atmosphere of audible aprosodia; able to hear everything happening around me, but unable to completely comprehend it.  

But this will progress as my time here grows, and hopefully you’ll be interested enough in continuing to read about my progression and development.

If you’re really interested, you can always keep up to the hour track of me on any of the above-mentioned social networks. Feel free to add me on any of them! Until next time!