A draft I found in the system from my time in Japan:
I went to a graduation for the sixth grade students I teach at the school today. Japan has a love for fixed, rigid rituals with long speeches. It was a painful experience.
When I got married we made a decision not to have long speeches in it. It was our day and nothing could ruin that faster than having to sit through long monologues in a language you can barely understand.
Perhaps not understanding the language fully saved me. After 4 years, I have a good grasp of Japanese but the complicated way the formalities were conducted in left my head swirling.
The ceremony was novel however – the grade below sang songs to the upper grade after the relentless parade of speeches had finished which was a nice touch.
At one point the head teacher called upon different groups of the audience to stand up and offer congratulations to the graduates. The PTA started, then on to the people who provide the school lunches and then the bus drivers. They were sitting right next to us and it looked like we would have to stand up and say something. “What do we do?” I asked my colleague as I had not been prepared for this.
“Just copy everybody else.” he answered. In the end we were left out. Happy this time to be excluded.
How about some photos? This is a picture of my good friend Adam. He’s a dude. There’s a bit of wobble in the head but overall I’m pleased with the picture.
The wife and daughter have gone back to Japan for three weeks for Shichi-Go-San
You can read more about it at the above link but in essence when a girl is three or seven or a boy is five they go to a temple and pray for good luck.
I’m stuck at home in England looking for jobs in a week off on holiday and working for the remaining two weeks.
One of my best ideas was definitely not move back to England as the recession started and with only ONE YEAR remaining before I could get a permanent visa in Japan. Sample rejection email:
Thanks for your application for the above role. However our client has received a great many applications from people with more IT experience. Unfortunately we will not be taking your application further.
We do currently have a French speaking telesales role, would you be interested in this?
No.
Still teaching English had run its course for me. Although it gave me great opportunities and a new window on the world, it didn’t help my career to much of an extent. Although selling home insurance in a call centre isn’t much better…
I don’t want to turn this into another negative post so I’ll stop there. I’m hoping that by getting stuff out it will help me write about other more enlightening things. It’s hard to write a blog about Japan when you live in England. I’m doing a degree in my spare time with the Open University in Java programming, getting into Linux via the Eee PC. Other blogs are helping me get a lot out of these. For example:
An Open University Blog
Bournemouth is full of students and that makes me feel sad. And old. ——————
Posted via email from quaisi’s posterous
