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.