Thursday, January 13, 2005

Quick Update

Hey all, I've been distracted this past week by a video game. It helps me save money by not going out and spending a ton on alcohol. But it's also prevented me from posting anything up here and getting that mountain of pics from Kyoto sorted, not that I've had anything interesting going on anyway. It's just the same old routine lately, now that we're back from New Year's break. I got sent off to Yokohama for half a day for Chibiko training. Basically, that means that after a few hours of singing and dancing, I'm now qualified in the eyes of Nova to teach 2-3 year olds. Kinda scary. But at least they're required to have a parent or guardian present to keep them under control and clean up any messes.

I can't believe that I've been here for 9 months already, it's kind of strange, it doesn't feel like that long a time. But I guess it has. Like you know, I'd planned on staying for 2 or 3 years. Which means my contract renewal time is coming up. Unfortunately, Nova likes to keep things in suspense, so they'll do the end of contract lesson observation in February, but they won't actually offer or decline a contract until exactly 3o days before my contract's up, leaving me almost no time to find another job. They've done that in the past to lots of people. I guess they do it so that when they offer you renewal, you're supposed to feel so grateful that you won't mind them not bothering to give you a raise at all, even though you've worked hard, and certainly are more capable than others. Many Japanese companies are known for standards of the lowest common denominator, and I guess this one isn't too different. So I'm keeping my options open. I've applied to be an ALT, which means teaching in a public school, or several to be exact, in my city. The interview was Tuesday, I think it went well, we'll see where it goes. I'm keeping my options open at the moment.

Anyway, if anyone who knows about html knows how to create a links sidebar, I'd be most grateful to figure out how to do it. I want to post up links to other pages, photo blogs set up by friends, that sort of thing. Until then, here's a little something to tide you over, the Engrish website

Good day all, off to work now!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That Engrish website is awesome!
oooooh please bring me an incomprehensible t-shirt from Japan... I'll love you forever in a non-gay type of way!

Dave is trying the videogame/savings scheme... hope it's working out better for you.
-Glasser