Welcome to Gaia! ::

Okay, so for those of you who don't know, Japan Bowl is an annual competition for high school (and second semester college) students. It is a national competition held in the Washington D.C./ Maryland area. There are some variations of the contest (such as the Japan Cup in Colorado) which are run in ways similar to that of Japan Bowl.

The contest will be held in 2010 on April 8th through the 9th (thursday and friday). It will be held at the national 4-H Youth Conference Center in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Administrative prcedures and applications will not be posted on the JASWDC website until September (2009). If you want to get ahead, the study guide is already out on the site. If you want to look into it click here. The study guide will be in a PDF format. And for those participating in Japan Bowl variations, the study guide for those is usually similar, however, your specific competition may still be waiting for their Japanese Teacher's Association to give them the study guide.

Well, I may not be participating in 2010, but 2011, I'mma kick some @**.

Anyway, even if I'm totally psyched (and I hope this doesn't count as advertisement, as I have no affiliation with Japan Bowl, and I really don't wanna get yelled at for it) I think everyone should post their feelings about this competition. Maybe someone could include some other competitions (outside the U.S., or maybe a Japan Bowl variant). So leave a comment, even if it is "Dude, that sounds awesome". Feel free to tack on information I forgot.

Oh, I also forgot to mention, for those of you who'd like to do this competition (or your state's variant) you won't be alone. It is required that you enter as a team of 2-3 people. This is a real help for those of us who don't like speaking in front of crowds. So it's fun for you AND your friends.

There is also a chance for the (I think it's) top three Level IV teams (who are generally highschool seniors) to visit Japan (and possibly give a demonstration of how the competition works at the US embassies in Tokyo and... I forgot, but it's in Japan... I hope. sweatdrop ).