update letter

Greetings all,
I got emails from several people I wanted to respond well too, and they backed up, so here goes with a generic letter that will also be posted on my blog, because I don’t post even half as much as I should. I ate whale today, and it turns out that I have eaten it on several occasions in the past without knowing it. At one point, the school actually lied to me and told me it was tuna. They know the rest of the world frowns on them eating it, and they act accordingly guilty. It wasn’t bad, but it was only school lunch, so you cant expect great things.

Things are going well here, as well as can be expected anyway. I am still teaching, but I might be starting a new gig in September. I am getting hired to do international sales, but I wont start doing that until I learn about the company and their products. So, I will start out working a machine in the factory for a year or so. It should be good practice for Japanese, which is also something I have to work on. The down side of this change is that I wont get long vacations any more. I had gotten used to them!

I am also trying to figure out what to do about a house here. I need a new apartment, but it is hard to get one on your own here as a foreigner. It is Japan, such things are legal here. They are talking about moving me into a really crappy public (read as tenement) building that is less than 150 a month, but I cant do that until after I start the new job, and my current apartment is tied to my old job. Therefore, I have to time it just right, or I am screwed. If only I didn’t have so much stuff. I don’t mind sleeping in the dirt! Trying to sort that problem out is my major concern just now, and it is preventing me from saying for sure when, or if, I will be home this summer. I really want to go on the kayak trip though, and I am working to make that happen. This year, we are going to the Broken Island Group again, and I am hardcore stoked to go there again. I love that paddle ground.

So anyway, besides all that, same shit different day. Any questions?

Take care, and don’t do nothing Id do!Ray

humming computer

Yet again, I am bitching. Today was another crappy day. I thougth it was just me, and I was being grumpy, and that was true, but the teachers today have been real dicks-at least my first two. The second actually had some of her kids workign on another assignment WHILE I was giving my lesson, as she walked around collecting and grading it. This would be yet another example of a good thing I dont speak Japanese well. If I did, I would have ripped her a new one, at least by JP standards, by asking her to knock it off. Completely disrespectful. Every time I come to this school, I eagerly await my impending departure. It turns out that I hate Japanese and American teachers, albeit for different reasons. It should be two more weeks until I get a finalized contract to consider...I am waiting impatiently.... I am ready to go!

Bells for class

I take it back about the sixth grade, this time I realized that I forgot after they told me on Friday about it. My bad! Still working on everything else...

Random Japanese kids...

I am writing in the staff room today. They screwed up my class schedule again today, yet again the 6th grade teachers at Hotei have proven themselves incapable of the simple task of using a schedule. I had to call the classroom after 15 minutes, and then we had to reschedule the class for the last period. This only happens here, only happens with the sixth grade, and has happened 4 times-twice in the two times I have been here this year. It really pisses me off that they can be so uppity, and yet so unprofessional.

I did not put in my notice yet, as my contract with the new place is still under negotiation. I am probably going to do so around July now, but who the hell knows. I am stuck in reactive mode; unable to proactively do much of anything at all. Oh well, fuck it. So, in other news, it is also now possible that I will not be going home for the summer. I have been doing the math, and it was going to be tight before, but it now seems very impractical; if not impossible. I needed 7 to start the new company and go home, and I will not have that. I really wanted to go, as it will be my last chance to take a lengthy leave, but fuck it, you gotta do what you gotta do. If I do stay, I will probably take an intensive Japanese course, and that will help me to start my new job on a less stressful and generally better foot.

Semper gumby.