Turnaround

And with that, we found ourselves back in Seoul again.  After a week-long visa run in Osaka, we were back in the working world, wearing ties and showering every day (sometimes, anyway).  As of press time, we have been teaching at Yum Kwang Continuing Education Center, the after-school academy (hagwon) arm of the enormous Yum Kwang Christian School, for one month.

The job has been refreshingly laid-back: the hours are short, the lesson planning is minimal, and best of all, no one is expected to hang around out of politeness once the day is over.  Our last classes finish at 6:55, and by 7:00, the lights are out and all of the teachers have already left to head home.  Japan, this ain't.

So buckle in, blog fans, because for the next year, Rubber Side Down will be back in Expat Teacher Mode.  Expect some factual tips for bike touring in Japan, flashbacks to some of our untold adventures in Missouri and California, and more expat living wackiness, including...

More kid art (by Harry)!

More food with eyes on it!

More cute kid writing/nationalistic propaganda!

More comically large instruments!

More obscure crafts!

More karaoke (of course)!

More horrific vegetable-themed children's books!

And more charmingly quirky student papers!

Pasar 2

The next week at Pasar was blissful.  In the mornings we slept, helping Natsu bake fresh bread for breakfast, then leisurely began a few hours of work.  Since Pasar is mothballed for eight months of the year, the work mainly consisted of getting it shipshape.  We scrubbed floors, wiped down furniture, got the garden ready for planting, and washed all the dishes.  We also assisted our hosts at getting their "traditional Japanese bath" ready to use; this device, a rusty iron tub sitting atop a fire pit, brought to mind Bugs Bunny cracking jokes as he's about to be cooked, or maybe Charles Adams cartoons of pith helmeted explorers surrounded by cannibals.  Still, the bath was extremely comfortable, even if we did get eaten alive by mosquitoes.

We also declared war on the paper wasps that set up shop throughout Pasar's wooden buildings.  Having some experience with dealing with these particular beasties (a gang of them set up above our washing machine in Osaka one terrifying night), I took it upon myself to go Schwarzenegger on their thoraxes.  Step One: spray the hive with poison.  Step Two: run like hell.  If ever my resolve for destruction wavered, all I had to do was look into one of the hives, which were filled with grubs ready and eager to hatch and eat my eyeballs in revenge.

Though they may appear disgusting, these grubs
are actually completely sick and grody as well.

Thankfully, these wasps were mostly harmless, though we did occasionally hear the helicopter-hum of the dread スズメバチ, the Asian Giant Hornet (or "yak-killer hornet") that kills more people in Japan every year than bears and Godzilla combined.

Speaking of deadly flying insects and other fun things, our job hunt was in full swing by this point.  Since the internet connection of Pasar Moon took a backseat to its stunning view of the sea and unsurpassed conversation, we made many a trip to the local Lawson to check our e-mail.  Eventually, we were faced with a dilemma regarding our job prospects: we could take a high-paying job with long hours, a low-paying job with short hours, or a decidedly average-paying job with "meh" hours, all of which are located in Seoul.  Eventually, we made our choice, though not before a few dramatic bike rides across town to check our e-mail.

The menu at Pasar changed by the day; Natsu's always-excellent cooking was made up of fresh-baked bread made with natural yeast, homemade curry, and whatever seasonal ingredients could be foraged from the mountains and the sea.  One night, we ate like kings on tempura'd mountain vegetables, abalone sashimi, yuzu-marinated sea cucumber, and fried whelk, all taken for free from the area.

On another occasion, we drove up to the mountains to pick wild raspberries to make into jam.  Though it turned out to be a bit too early for raspberries yet, we brought in quite a haul of bamboo shoots and leafy greens.

Also a mushroom called a "Jew's Ear," but I don't really wanna talk about that.

While another WWOOFer and I busily scrubbed things, wiped things, and stacked things on top of other things, Jenn was tasked with designing an official Pasar Moon Flag, a task to which she brought all of her determination, as well as a pair of my ruined jeans.

And every night, the sunset grew lovelier still.

Hyogo 2: Move Along

It had only been five days on the road, but we were beginning to get worn down.  We'd gone a wildly unimpressive number of kilometers so far, having met difficulties in the forms of hills, mountains, slopes, climbs, and rain.  Typically, after three days of biking, no matter how short the distance covered, our bodies start to complain more loudly than usual.  After four, important organs start shutting down.  After five, our morale dropped to zombie-like levels.  It was time for a rest.

This stuff will wear you out.

The day before had been particularly hard on us.  The nearest park was still many kilometers ahead over uncertain terrain, and the sun was starting to set.  The rain clouds started to gather above the sleepy town of Tamba, which lessened our resolve even further.  Surely we couldn't pay for a hotel room just four short days into our trip?  How would we afford to continue our travels until a job came through for us in August or September?  Gritting our teeth and trying to ignore the raindrops that fogged up our glasses, we made it to a conbini at the edge of town, a Lawson that offers the blessed tonic that is Free WiFi.  In my e-mail inbox, we discovered an urgent missive from one of the many stinging jellyfish job recruiters (I always get those confused somehow) that we'd gotten to help in our job hunt in Korea.  The e-mail explained that we'd landed a Skype interview with a prestigious academy in Seoul, but the only time it could be conducted was the following morning at 10 a.m..  Which meant that we had three options: we could ask to reschedule the interview for a later date, we could free camp nearby and conduct our interview in a conbini parking lot over a questionable internet connection...or we could pass a restful evening in a local hotel room and be showered and dressed for our interview.  The course seemed clear.  We fired off an enthusiastic confirmation to the jellyfish, then happily turned around and pedaled back into town in search of a hotel.  The Travel Gods seemed to be giving us the go-ahead, paving the way back to downtown Tamba with rainbows.

We paid the shockingly high hotel bill (about $130), then tried to console ourselves by catching up on our Game of Thrones and beer drinking.  The next morning, we were showered, polished, caffeinated, and prepped for our interview.

The shower was probably a good idea.

The recruiter sent us a confirmation early in the morning, and when 10:00 rolled around, we were signed into Skype and ready to kiss some ass.  By 10:30, we had started to grow restless, especially since we were already half an hour late for the hotel's check-out time.  We e-mailed our jellyfish and the school, explaining that we were ready to begin whenever they were.  More coffee cups were filled and emptied.  By 10:45, there was still no answer from anybody.  A few more desperate messages explaining the need for haste.

Harry started to get this expression again.

At 11:10, we could wait no longer, and frantically tore off our work clothes, packed our bags, and fled before we could be charged more money by the hotel.  We cursed the unprofessionalism of all parties involved and wondered how we could have so misinterpreted the universe's premonitions.  By the time we got back to the same fateful Lawson where all this had started, we had received an e-mail from the jellyfish.  He explained that he had set up our interview time without actually getting word from the school that the time he proposed would work for them in any way; he apologized, and asked if we could be ready the next morning at the same time.

This was the spirit that we carried with us as we pushed through the mountains of Hyogo.  Unrested, uneasy (but not unwashed, for a change), we made our way to an athletic park for a long lunch and a nap.

Thoroughly discouraged at how the day had gone, we decided to camp at a campground that Google promised us was just a few kilometers further, a place called 丹波少年自然の家.  We found the place with no problems, and we were ready for a good rest there.  It was a forest that had been converted into a campground and family recreation area, the kind of place where a school might take its students on an overnight trip.  There were rivers, fire pits, cabins, and extremely well-maintained kitchen areas and toilets.  Best of all, it was completely devoid of other customers.  Perhaps we could take a rest day here on the following day, even!

I made a good faith effort to register us at the camp office, but found all of the buildings suspiciously dark.  There did seem to be one office that was in business, with office ladies typing away at something, but considering how closed-looking everything was, I figured it would be best to make as little noise as possible, figuring that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.  As I hiked back to the tent sites where Jenn was watching our bikes, I watched in horror as a gang of ducks pursued and apparently raped a female duck that was waddling away from them as quick as she could, quacking in terror.  Ominous portents, to be sure, but I tried to pay them no mind.

By the time we had gotten our bags off of the bikes, a light truck pulled up and two Japanese men with clipboards approached us.  We smiled and greeted them even as our stomachs sank.

"Why didn't you come to the office and register?" one of the men asked.

Against my better judgment, my temper flared.  "I did, but nobody was there," I half-lied.

"Not the office right here, the one by the river."

"I did go there, but I didn't see anybody."  My mind flew back to the previous day, when a hotel clerk had fallen all over himself explaining how his hotel really wasn't suitable for us, that the other hotel in town was much better and we'd be much happier there.  I thought of all of the officials who'd just made the "no" sign rather than try speaking to me.  I got my gaijin up, in short.

"You can't camp here," one of them explained.

"What, really?"

"Yes.  We're closed, you can't camp here."

"Why was the gate open?  Why isn't it posted anywhere that you're not open?" I protested.  Jenn urged me to leave it alone, but I persisted, pigheadedly.  "There's all of this space, why can't we just set up here?  We'd pay, of course."

They both shook their heads.  I huffed and puffed, then petulantly asked if they knew of any other campgrounds in the area where our money would be more welcome.  They both pretended to think just long enough for us to give up and start packing up again.

Anger fueled us for another fifteen kilometers.  We railed against the stupidity of spending a fortune converting perfectly good forest into a campground, paying a staff of dozens to maintain it and keep the electricity running, then keeping away paying customers.  We could come up with few explanations other than out-and-out racism, figuring that a young Japanese couple would probably not be turned away so roughly (but then, a young Japanese couple probably wouldn't try it in the first place, nor would they act so belligerent when confronted).  Clearly it was a mistake to try to camp at an officially-sanctioned site in Japan; it was much better to break the law and camp in a city park.  Even if a campsite would lose money by turning us away, a much greater infraction would be asking one of the staff to overlook the rules by allowing us to stay.

We did find another park to camp, one much farther up the road.  It, too, was clearly closed for business, but it seemed much more abandoned than the last, the weeds grown over its benches and gazebos.  We set up in a gravel lot as the sun went down, hoping that the glowing eyes we saw in the woods were not bears but tanooki, and well-fed ones at that.

More Haps

We interrupt this wildly out-of-date account of our activities to bring you a more timely update:

I type this hundreds of kilometers and dozens of days from the Shimanami Kaido, hiding from the rain in a Lawson conbini somewhere in the mountains of Hyogo prefecture.  Since you've last heard from us, Jenn and I have done the Kaido up and down, caught a ferry back to Osaka, toiled on an organic farm for two weeks, and begun another bike trip.  Also, we've finally run the numbers on the Plan, and have since found a slight flaw in its design: we've run out of money a bit faster than we'd thought we might.  There are reasons for this, naturally, but for the purposes of space and ego, let's just write it off as "witchcraft."

So, rather than working for the summer in Korea to replenish our coffers (we've been informed that the job we'd been planning to return to won't have us back due to visa-related reasons), we've begun the process of applying for any job we can find in East Asia.  We've interviewed with kindergartens in Hong Kong, conversation schools in Vietnam, universities in Korea, and Disney-owned Mandatory English Fun Centers in China.  I think we're getting close to finding something, though, so most likely we'll be working somewhere in Korea from this July or August until the same time next year.  Which means, of course, that you all are in for another batch of teaching-related hijinx and/or escapades.  Hooray?

In short: biking and farming until June, then doing something in Korea, then working from July or August.  More info as it comes in, and blog posts about the farm and job interview process to follow.  A teaser:

Rough day on the farm.

Whoever this guy is, he seems excited about looking for a job.

Life of Why

Combing through my notebook, I stumbled on a piece that I wrote about interviewing at Nichibei English Service, back in my days working as a part-time sofa cover. I present it now as a look back at what a noob I was those many months ago. Let's enjoy, won't us?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I continue to sweat through my only suit as I turn in my chair to stare out the floor-to-ceiling window that looms 26 stories above Osaka's Kita Ward. The city is usually described to Westerners as ugly, industrial, metallic, boring -- at best, these epithets are followed by a "but" and something uninspired about history or culture. I wonder: am I the only hakujin in this vast office building packed to the gills with salarymen, kimono-clad old women, jewelry stored, coffee shops? How many gaijin are there in the hundreds of squatting concrete monstrosities in my line of sight? How many of them are unemployed, too?

I turn back to face the tiny classroom I've been waiting in for nearly an hour. The whole room is done up in a monochromatic rainbow, but the effect is less Men in Black and more modernistic community college: gray carpet, gray plastic desks, whiteboard, white acoustical tile, eggshell wallpaper, black-and-white photocopied fliers stapled to gray felt message boards. The room seems set up for two dozen students, but conditions are cramped; I had to shove one of the desks forward to accommodate my modest gut, crushing the row of chairs in front of me as I did so. At 5'10, I am clearly uncomfortably big for this room.

Staring up at me from the cramped table (my legs press uncomfortably against its black metal underbelly) is my application for Nichibei English Services that I was given by the secretary who showed me in when I arrived at 1:10, a full 20 minutes before my interview was scheduled. In my ignorance, I had politely introduced myself to her and offered her a copy of my resume, grinning like a fiend to seem as genki as possible. Now, 40 minutes after my interview was due to begin, I can't stop my mind from lingering over the bursts of feminine laughter that periodically echo in under the door.

"No, no, he seriously said 'Good morning, I am English teacher, appointment interview have!"

"Ha ha, really?"

"Yes! And he wouldn't stop smiling for some reason! I think he thought I was in charge!"

"Tell us again about how sweaty his suit was!"

I sigh deeply, in the process blowing a few drops of sweat onto the application. The hideous cyclopean blank under the final unanswered question glares up at me: "Why did you come to Japan?"

I glance at the clock. 2:15.

It seemed a fair question, on the surface. No teaching certification, no work visa, little knowledge of Japanese (say, on par with David Sedaris's French), two degrees in an unusably academic discipline...why the hell did I come to Japan?

I had certainly been asked this question, this accursed, stinking, raging motherfucker of a question before: by parents, by friends, by teachers, by all the acquaintances and random strangers my mother had told for some reason. Usually I was able to pass off a joke or a bullshit answer, something ranging from "Why not?" to "I've always had a fascination with the elegance and and complexity of Japanese culture" to "Well, I like the food, ha ha!", each of which contains some kernel of truth, but is still beautifully meaningless.

Still, there always seemed to be something suspicious or evilly prying about the question (feelings only intensified when seeing it in print on a job application). I mean, hey, why the hell do you do what you do? Huh? Why do your work your job? To pay the bills, right? TO advance your career? To try to eke out a little happiness in this thoroughly fucked-up world? Boredom, maybe? Fuck you!

Then again, I had been asked the big "why" question during my interview at Pizza Hut the summer before flying to Osaka...maybe Nichibei English Service just wants a bullshit answer, too. Maybe they'll be as relieved as the Pizza Hut RM was to hear something stupid like, "Well, I've always loved eating here, ha ha!"

2:25. I keep spotting a silhouette through the narrow papered-over window in the door. Eyes glazing over, sweat painting my brand-new Hanes undershirt yellow, I can swear that someone is checking to see if I'm finished yet. The door stays closed.

OK, then, why the hell did I come to Japan? Other than "the food" and similar hoo-ha, there are two real reasons, neither of which would be interesting or even acceptable to a prospective employer.

The first reason is simple, or at least comprehensible: love. My wife and I had discussed coming to Japan for years. We gleefully filled out one application form after another for the JET Program, a Japanese governmental program that imports hundreds of smelly foreign barbarians every year -- most of them fresh out of college, with zero teaching experience or Japanese ability -- to serve as Assistant Language Teachers in public schools. Essays written, letters of recommendation forwarded, we passed our final year at Truman State University cheerfully planning our futures. JET Program to Peace Corps to MATESOL, maybe? Or JET to Fulbright to PhD?

(...Oh god, it just hit me. Truman State University? Could I have picked as worse alma mater for finding a job in Japan? I strongly consider doctoring my photocopied diplomas to something less offensive, like, say, "Al Gore State University.")

The sympathy poured in from all corners, most of all my own. "Gee, I was sure you'd be a lock!" "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear it!" "How is it that you didn't get in, even with your teaching experience and Japanese?" Like, I know. I immolated myself in self-pity for hours before bothering to congratulate Jenn, behavior for which I'm still extremely ashamed. We were married two months later, and we dropped our visa applications in the mail a week after that. I am legally a "spouse," as far as the Japanese government is concerned.

2:31. Still haven't been escorted out of the building and exposed as a fraud. The "food" answer grows ever more tempting.

I begin: "I came to Japan because"

No college-boy tricks here. No double-spacing or margin-fudging. No typographical acrobatics, no obfuscation or unfounded generalizations or meaningless jargon -- you're not in Kansas anymore.

The second reason I came to Japan, and really, the lesser of the two, was a very provable if idle interest in the country. At 9 years old, I took an after-school course that taught me to count to 99 and to appreciate mochi. At 18, I tried my damnedest to like anime. At 19, I cultivated a short-lived interest in Japanese folk tales. Hell, I took six Japanese language courses and one culture course. Can't they just read my resume instead of having me fill out this ridiculous form?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Anticlimactic, I know, but as it happens, I never finished this piece. Now, a year and a half later, I find myself almost totally unable to recreate that mindset. I can enter strange restaurants without fear. I've applied for dozens more jobs and I've been working for 14 months. I've moved and opened two bank accounts. I have Japanese friends. All I can offer to finish this story, for now at least, is resolve the two big questions:

1. While I can't remember exactly what answer I finally gave, it was something uninspired that might as well have been copied from the first paragraph of a travel guide to Japan, something about a synthesis of traditional culture and progress. Pffffft.

2. I got the job. Go figure.

Happy New Year and all that. Here's to another year of confusion, be it awkward, joyous, drunken, or all three!

Traditional Japanese Culture. In the Butt.

Yes, as alluded to in yesterday's dispatch, I, Harry Althoff, am once more among the ranks of the Working. I don't really have too many details yet, but I can tell you that I will be teaching English at a kindergarten. Yes, ol' Harry's comin' up in the world!

At this rate, I'll be teaching English to babies by this May, and by September I can retire, I guess.

The interview process was considerably mellower than at Berlitz; I was interviewed by two youngish American guys -- wearing a near-complete Luigi costume and a basic Old Navy get-up respectively -- and a very smiley Japanese woman who was cracking up over the two Americans the whole time. They spoke to me in the Sun Room (just down the hall from Acorn Room and Grapes Room), where I planted my be-suited butt in the tiniest, most frail-looking chair in the world. The whole thing had a kind of Alice in Wonderland vibe, really.

They let me know last Friday that, though it's still tentative, I've got the job! No idea what my hours or commitments will be at all, but they'll let me know on my first day (not ideal, but better than finding out about that stuff on the second or third day). I've been told that the kids' enthusiasm is really infectious (speaking of, I heard one of the teachers carefully explain to some students the importance of hand-washing...they repeated "no in-flu-en-za" after him). I was also asked in a phone interview if I had any real problems with being hit by small plastic shovels or being called a doo-doo head. Hey, every occupation has its hazards, right? As long as they don't have cell phones.

The one thing I am worried about is a traditional bit of Japanese culture called "kancho," pictured in yesterday's blog post, which is very common with younger children. Because it's fun, here's another picture:

I don't think "fun" means the same thing in Japanese, actually.

As you might be able to guess, "kancho" is something that kids do to each other and to slow-moving grownups: they...well, they jam their fingers into a rather delicate area and yell "kan-CHO!" I can't imagine why we don't have a word for this in English...oh, wait, we do: "sexual assault." Culturiffic!

To sum up: Harry's career has just gone from this...


...to this:


Sweet deal.

Interview at Mephistopheles, Inc.

First, a few notes for those of you following along at home:

1. I'll be blogging every day this week, assuming I can find enough hilarious photos on Google Images to fill that much.
2. Big ups to Raku Cafe and our good friends over at Radies and Radishes. They are...well, rad.
3. I got a job. More on this later this week, promise (unless I find more important things to talk about -- like, say, melon soda -- and run out of time). In the meantime, here's a hint of what I'm in for:

Out.

Waaaay back when, you may recall that I had an "interview" with one of the more behemoth eikaiwas, Aeon, which devolved into a nightmarish spiral into confusion and madness. And sweat. Plus, I didn't actually get interviewed by anybody.

Well, last Monday I managed to get a real, actual interview with a live human bei...well, we'll get to that, but in any case, I was called in for an interview by Berlitz. A group interview, as it happens; I've been told that it's not unusual for group interviews to involve pop quizzes or pitting the applicants against one another to see who wants the job more (I prepared some notes for what to say in the event of physical combat, such as "I surrender unconditionally"). Still, terrified though I may have been, it's not like I had much else to do on a Monday, and I really could use that job. Also, there was a bagel place right next door that I'd been wanting to try (dear Japan: A+ for effort but D for taste when it comes to your Soy Milk and Edamame bagel and your Green Tea and White Chocolate bagel).

I'd had experience with ESL job interviews before, of course. Playing up my greatest strength of sheer desperation, my usual MO involved agreeing to anything and everything immediately. Work on weekends? No travel recompensation? Live badgers? Yes sir, I'm your man! So far it's had about a 50-50 success rate.

This one was different from other interviews, though. Being ushered into a smallish conference room with two other youngish dudes, we were greeted by a middle-aged American in a sharp suit. He looked like Tim Curry's boring younger brother, with a goatee usually worn by some of the more reputable demons and eye bags you could smuggle cats in. I should have been tipped off that something was wrong right at the start when I saw that the interviewer had the all-time biggest movie tip-off for an evil character: slicked-back hair.

Still, I kept positive and copied down the Berlitz Five Principles from a poster on the wall into my notebook. They seemed pretty easy to get behind, though in retrospect, the fact that the first one read "Total Customer Orientation" should have tipped me off; I believe that's the same first Principle of Ford, Microsoft, and Burns Nuclear Power.

The interviewer started by asking us the only two questions he would ask for the entire interview: "Are you familiar with Berlitz products?" and "Do you have a work visa?" (I think I did pretty well at those). He then proceeded to give us a historical rundown of the Berlitz company. Among other fascinating tidbits, I learned that Berlitz is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Benese Holdings, a Japanese company owned by the #137 richest man in the world that also invests in toys and silver. I tried to ignore the tingling I started to get at the base of my neck at this point.

He then walked us through the contracts for Berlitz's Full-Time, Part-Time, and Private Lesson positions. This took us about half an hour, after which he mentioned that they were only hiring for Private Lessons. I stopped taking notes at this point. As the gentleman walked us through all of the manifold generous benefits offered to employees of Berlitz, I got the strangest feeling that he was trying to sell us something; it's nice to be pursued by an employer, but not by one who gives off an unmistakable used car salesman vibe (perhaps I would have to sell Tupperware or magazine subscriptions during lessons?). Among those benefits, incidentally: we can take Berlitz Language Courses for less than the usual rip-off rate they charge, and we get to use a select number of Worldwide Resorts at a discount! Also, we are forbidden from working for any of Berlitz's eikaiwa rivals like Aeon. There's that tingling again...

Towards the end of the talk, he bottom-lined us: "This is not a school," he said, flatly, hands clasped on the table. "Berlitz is not recognized as a school by the Japanese Ministry of Education. It's a corporation. We have a duty to our stockholders first. The product that we sell just happens to be language services." It was about at this point that I noticed that the interviewer didn't cast a shadow.

The hard sell continued into the informal questions period, when he reminded us all that Berlitz had more than 500 schools worldwide, and that if we would agree to a Training Session (I could only assume that the Training Session would involve the Ludovico Technique), we could find employment at any of them. He chuckled as he continued: "I can think of no other organization in the world that offers that kind of opportunity for travel. Except (laugh) the Peace Corps, and they don't pay as much as we do." I smiled manically. Ha ha! Yep, those volunteers sure are suckers! Maybe they should look to the Five Principles for guidance!

I signed the Post-Interview Questionnaire (surprisingly, not in blood), somehow keeping myself from scrawling "OH GOD STOP THEM BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE" at the bottom. I still haven't gotten a call back. Go fig.

Psychophotofunkagenic

Well, Harry is now doing his part for the burgeoning Unemployment economy (you're welcome): my contract at Sakishima expired on Wednesday, and I am now officially re-unemployed after having worked my final day on Friday (a long, gross, and unless I add some good lies about bikini-clad space pirates, extremely boring story). Time to return to my former position as King of the Laundry.

And so now I humbly return to my typical job hunting activities. Feels like it was just yesterday that I was going through the process:

1. Breakfast
2. Look on some employment websites
3. Second Breakfast
4. Coffee
5. Lunch
6. Daily Show
7. Update my resume with some good lies (fun facts from Harry's resume: Harry Althoff spent many hours planning elaborate lessons that effectively engaged students at Sakishima High School, Harry Althoff is proficient with Microsoft Vista, Harry Althoff invented the Tivo, Harry Althoff is the capital of Moldova)
8. Grocery shopping
9. Novel writing/Snacks
   

One of the greatest tools that a freelance English teacher has for finding work in Japan is the smattering of find-a-student websites. I'm contracted with Ability English School and I have profiles on Senseibank, Mysensei, Sensei112, Gaijinpot, and S1. So far, I've accumulated a grand total of one private student, and she works at Jenn's school. Having recently finished Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and The Tipping Point, I've realized that I might not be hitting the student paydirt for a very simple reason; for this reason, I just changed my profile picture on all of these websites to see if that helps. And for good cause, too...my previous profile picture was pretty terrible:

Wait, sorry, that's my old Facebook picture. Man, I'm glad I got a haircut...

All the raw sex appeal of a young, sweaty Gerald O'Hara's yearbook photo. Nice.

Yeah, I wouldn't hire me, either. I took this photo on the day when I happened to be wearing my suit, which, by some coincidence, was also the hottest day in the history of Japan (tied, temperature-wise, with a cool spring day on the surface of the sun). If you don't know, I produce enough sweat that I'm legally classified as an illegal aquifer. Hopefully, I'll get a few more students now that I've uploaded a slightly more attractive picture of me in teaching mode:

OK, I actually brushed my hair (mostly) and put on a suit (again, mostly) for the photo. Here's a slightly zoomed-out photo.

Sound track: David Bowie, "Fame."

As long as I'm clogging the inter-web-o-pipes with photos, here's a belated Valentine's Day photo from all of us at Amazing Tales of the Gaijin Patrol:

Ironically, those heart-shaped objects are loaded with cholesterol.

...and here's a photo of Jenn's last day in America, 6ish months ago.


Compared to stuff we've seen since, this really isn't that weird. We'll upload photos of the Pikachu bus that stalks our neighborhood as soon as we can get some -- it's an elusive devil.

Welcome to the Working Week!

Yes, you may have heard it shouted from the rooftops even all the way across the Pacific: thanks to the untimely quitting of another contract employee, I now have a position at ECC Best Careers! I'll be teaching at Sakashima High School here in Osaka, about an hour's commute from our place in Tondabayashi. It's a Monday-Thursday job running from October to February.


In a word:

More to come.

Interview at Kafkaesque, Inc.

News on the job hunt: a couple of Fridays ago I decided to stop in at my local branch of AEON (which stands for Alternate Education...Or...Not?). AEON is one of the bigger-name eikaiwas, which are private conversation schools that are scattered all through urban Japan, mostly right around train stations so busy sarariimen can stop on the way home and pick up a loaf of bread and some English lessons.

I'm a little worried about the prospect of working at an eikaiwa, as pretty much the only things they're known for are 1. being depressing as hell to work at and 2. going bankrupt. "How bankrupt?", you may ask. So bankrupt that Japanese cell phone companies now make gaijin sign huge, scary contracts that stipulate that the phone company basically gets money from us forever and ever, cross our hearts and hope to die. This is to make sure that we don't do something inconsiderate like be forced to leave the country if our eikaiwa folds.

Still, what else do I have to do during the day? I'd seen posters for AEON put up throughout the nearest big train station...sure, I couldn't actually read anything on the poster, but I recognized the name and the picture of a white guy in a suit. How hard could it be to find, right [/foreshadowing]?

I put on my suit, took the trek to the Internet cafe, printed out my resume, and (4 HOURS LATER) decided to go about finding this place. I asked the smiley employee at one of the local information kiosks, in my best Japanese, "AY-ON AEKAYWA, DOKO DESU KA?" She clearly had no idea what I meant. I repeated the words in varying intonations and with a medley of gestures and nonsensical pantomimes, she brought in the other employees at the information kiosk...no good. She was able to point me in the direction of a different eikaiwa that I had already applied at, so I considered that success enough and thanked her, backing away as quickly as I could.

Disheartened, I started walking in a random direction so the info ladies could see that I had somewhere important to be and wasn't just walking in a random direction. Happily, I stumbled upon another information kiosk, where I repeated my performance. This time, I must have mimed "conversation school" better, because the lady not only pointed me in the right direction (somewhere on this block, just past the Starbucks), but she corrected my pronunciation of "Aeon"*.

My suit now dripping in sweat, I circled the block in question a few times before I finally saw a sign that seemed to indicate that Aeon shared a building with a huge arcade/pachinko parlor. I gave it a try (see earlier "nothing else to do all day" comment), and sure enough, signs indicated that Aeon was on the 7th floor. Jackpot! Relieved that I'd finally found it, I strolled into the elevator, pushed 7, and...nothing happened. Nothing lit up, nothing moved. So, I applied all of my critical thinking skills to the situation, and pushed the button a ton more times. Then I tried another elevator, with the same results. I began to notice a pattern.

In desperation, I pushed "6," figuring that, hey, 6 is closer to 7 than 1 is...maybe I could yell really loud or scale the side of the building or something. At any rate, 6 lit up and took me to an empty hallway with official-looking signs everywhere. Figuring I was as close as I would ever get, I stopped in the bathroom, got out my resume, combed my hair, had a breathmint, and steeled my nerves. Not like it mattered; the elevator still wouldn't take me up any further.

Again in desperation, I tried a door on the 6th floor that had a picture of stairs on it. You can imagine my relief when the door opened to the stairwell. Ah, now I was getting somewhere!

I hiked up to the 7th floor (mussing up my hair and sweating up my suit even more), put on my best, most genki smile, and opened the door. Wait, no, I didn't. It was locked. So, in fact, was the door to the 6th floor. See diagram.

The stairwell at the Aeon/Pachinko Co, Ltd.

Laughing in glee at my hilarious misadventure ("Ha ha!" were my exact words), I tried every successive door on each floor, noticing that I was the only one on this stairwell. The one on the 1st floor opened, giving me hope that I might escape death by starvation/panic attack yet. I found myself at some kind of boiler room/office where some 6 or 7 bejumpsuited men were congregating for reasons I will never know. I summoned up my best Japanese and explained carefully, "AEON EIKAIWA?"

They asked me if I was a teacher. Having caught on that certain things might have to be sacrificed to reach my goal (like the truth), I told them that I was. They said a lot of things, mostly involving the word "yasumi," meaning break. I nodded enthusiastically, telling them that, yes, I was a teacher on break. Why else would I have been hanging out in my suit in the stairwell? Ha ha!

One of them finally took me to the same elevator that I had used. He pushed "7," giving me a nice opportunity for a smug (if bitter) smile when nothing happened. He spoke into a walkie-talkie for a minute or so, though, and sure enough, the elevator took us up to the 7th floor. All the lights were off, and there was a big steel shutter over the only door in the hallway (in retrospect, the shutter does seem a little unnecessary in the way of security). On the shutter was a small piece of paper that seemed to explain that Aeon was on summer break until Monday.

I gave the guy as harmless a laugh as I could, going for expressing something like, "Ha ha! Wow, I must've just forgot that the school where I work is on vacation! What a hilarious misunderstanding!" Neither of us spoke in the long elevator ride back down.

Epilogue: I returned on Monday, again in my suit, this time with the bitter confidence of knowing that this experience couldn't possibly be any more frustrating than the previous Friday (in case it was, I came prepared with a cyanide capsule). The school was open, but a young guy explained to me that they didn't deal with applications there, that I should go to their website if I wanted to apply.

I swear to god I heard a sad-trombone "Wah wah wah" at that point.

* It bears mentioning that I ran a three-year ongoing RPG campaign that prominently featured the word "Aeon." Yes, people corrected me then, too...pretty much every week. Gorram it.