Demoted

So the title is a bit of an overstatement. I've not actually been demoted. Since May last year I'd been acting as crew lead while the actual lead took an extended period of leave. Last week he returned from his leave so I've gone back to my permanent role as an operator. Immediate impacts of this are a pay cut and a slightly different shift pattern, as well as training the team to go to the actual boss and not me with boss things.

I've mixed feelings on this matter. There's a part of me relieved and looking forward to the reduction in stress (I've got a lot more grey hair now than I did a year ago), and for a while I've been feeling a bit like I wasn't being proactive enough for the job. For a while my mental processes have felt a bit like they did when I was experiencing depression, with my mind feeling a bit separated from myself (which is a bit odd since the mind is the self). I've considered utilising the EAP to talk to someone but haven't bit the bullet yet. However, there's another part of me that knows I'm going to get bored being back in my old job and will miss the extra challenge and responsibility. 

 I've learnt and grown a lot during the time I've been acting as the crew lead. I've had to go through the process of recruiting a new team member, which I think will serve me well next time I have to apply for a new job. I was the lead on duty the night the cyclone hit earlier this year which was the first time we ever did a fully remote set up for the control room, which had its own complications. I've worked with people and departments I haven't had to before and built new relationships with people.

Generally I think I did ok, but I am aware I'm a harsher judge of my performance than others are. The person I replaced has a lot more experience than me, especially on the practical fieldwork side of things, so I knew I wouldn't be able to do everything they could, and that did weigh on me at times when those sorts of jobs came up. 

At the moment I'm sort of in a little bit of limbo. After next week I'm taking the month off on leave, and the person who was replacing me while I was acting lead has stayed on and will also cover while I'm on leave, so for the two weeks in between we have an extra person, so I haven't exactly gone back to just being an operator, I'm sort of in between not quite an operator but also not quite a lead. Maybe that'll be a bit easier when I come back from leave as I'll have to fully focus on my actual job rather than the one I'm no longer doing.

I'm not sure what my next steps will be. I'll still go for future crew lead opportunities that come up, but I'm also thinking about looking at opportunities in some of the business hours team next year. That has its own challenges in that going to a job without shift penalties is effectively taking a big pay cut. Also I'm going to take a few months off next year as for the first time I'm able to use long service leave at a job (I've had one other job where I was there long enough they needed to include long service leave in my redundancy payout but not long enough to use it to take time off). 

Alfred Aftermath

It's been a stressful couple of weeks for me, mostly due to the fine gentleman at one time known as Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

 Alfred after a while of lurking off the coast of Queensland decided it was going to hit around Brisbane. This is a bit unusual as Brisbane is by no means tropical, and cyclones have generally been things that happen to other parts of Queensland. 

 With the way my schedule work, I was going to be working day shift the day before and after it was due to hit, and night shifts the next two days. However, due to Alfred deciding to hang off the coast overnight, the worst of it was on my first night shift.

Works prep for the cyclone was a bit mixed. It's unusual to get so much notice of a natural disaster like this (the last one was the floods a few years ago which we were about two days into before it became apparent just how bad it was going to be), so there was a fair bit of prep down. Preparations for remote work was done, sites were prepped and in some cases equipment removed to avoid it getting damaged by flooding, and so on. When the cyclone didn't hit on the expected day, it caused a little problem as some of the preparations were only practical for a limited time and stretching them out an extra day would cause some problems in and of itself. Some were easy to resolve such as allowing crews back on some sites to check up on equipment and do some more prep, others couldn't be changed and we just had to deal with more overflows.

 The night of the storm hitting was rather stressful. There were some things that came up that normally wouldn't be too much, but due to the weather we couldn't respond in a BAU fashion. The biggest was probably a water main burst due to a fallen tree. Normally, we'd work to fix it straight away, but in this case the winds were too strong and all we could do was isolate the burst and get out of dodge, which left a bunch of people without water until it was safe to go back almost a day and a half later. The stress was also piled on by the cyclone's impacts to the teams internet connectivity. My team was working from home, and half of us didn't have internet for a large part of the night, leaving the other half (of which I was part) to cover everything. Fortunately we were able to get someone from another team to join us on short notice to help out.

 On Sunday we were given the ok to return to the office (if it was safe to travel) which I did. The systems are much more reliable on the dedicated computers and there were fewer worries about losing internet or power. Two of my team couldn't get in and worked remotely, and one of them lost power partway through the night. 

In the days off post that block of shifts, I slept a lot of Monday and took Tuesday as a relaxation day. I went to a local City Cave and did a sauna, float session, and got a massage, and then went to a showing of Sister Act that night (I was impressed at how quick QPAC got back into action, actually I'm impressed overall at how quick Brisbane got back to normal even if there was a lot of small things still to be fixed up). On the way home I ran into a friend from uni who now lives in the apartment building next to mine and rather than chat in the street I invited her to my place where we spent about 2 hours talking. I'll admit I'm a pretty poor host as I didn't really have anything to offer by way of food or drink. I had planned to check in with the office on Wednesday and offer an 8 hour shift if needed, but I overslept and didn't wake up until almost noon, which was a sign of how tired I was. Thursday I had a PT session, then I went in to the office to catch up on where things were at so I didn't have to catch up on too much the next morning, and in the evening went to the book club I'm part of (Rump and Reading, we meet up at a bar on their discount steak night). I think only 2 of the 8 or so people who could make it actually finished this month's book East of Eden (I was one of the 2 who had). I'll try and put up a review soon.

Friday was back into work and while the situation wasn't great, it was better than I'd been expecting. There was still a fair bit of the business leaning in to support the recovery effort which was a help, but there were times over the weekend where a new team came on where it felt I was having to cover territory that had been sorted out the day before and getting them up to speed on areas that weren't my area of focus.

One thing I want to loop back to was the Friday night before the cyclone hit. After I finished work at 6, I spent a few hours finishing East of Eden, and then around 10pm I went out on my balcony to look out on the storm. There wasn't too much wind or rain at the time, and I stood out on my balcony looking up at the sky. At the time I was overcome by a feeling of powerlessness and a feeling that despite all the preparations I'd made both for work and for my home, ultimately there was little I could control in regards to the cyclone. This was a nearly overwhelming feeling, and lasted about half an hour before I was able to put myself together. In part this was because this was the first time in two days I'd not been overwhelmingly focused on something else, and possibly a bit due to hunger as after I'd collected myself I'd realised I'd not had a meal since breakfast, and after that realisation eating something did a lot help me pull myself together. I don't often experience strong emotions, and fear was not a pleasant one to have to wallow in.

I'm now on days off again, and tomorrow I'm flying down to Sydney to visit my sister and go to two recordings of Taskmaster Aus season 5 episodes which will be a good way to get out of the cyclone stress.

The Poster

When I started university, my plan was to get my degree, do honours, then a PhD, then become a researcher/lecturer, and then after about 40 years retire at around 65 (probably the most optimistic part of that whole plan). Of course, that kind of crashed and burned when I dropped out of my PhD, but that academic culture still sticks with me.

A part of that is the process of producing knowledge, and disseminating it. While I never had to publish or perish, the significance of getting a paper accepted and printed, and the related process of attending and presenting at conferences still carries the hallmarks of progress, success, and significance for me. 

At a conference, there are various levels of presentations. At the top you have the keynote speaker, then featured presenters, and then regular talks. The lowest of these is the poster presentation, where you have an A1 poster about your topic that people can look at, and depending on the conference, there might be some time where you're expected to stand by your poster for people to talk to you and ask questions. This is generally where you start out, and over time you work your way up.

And indeed this is where I started out. While I no longer have a copy of the poster, the paper that went with it is still online. 

But then life happened, and conferences weren't a part of what I did.

Until now.

Towards the end of last year the company that I now work at was encouraging staff to submit presentations for an industry conference as we are one of the main sponsors this year. After a little thought, I submitted a topic, and was accepted. And so I put together a poster for the conference.

 

The conference started on Tuesday, and after the opening address the first thing I did was walk through the expo hall to find where my poster was. Seeing it there did give a thrill and a sense of pride. 

 

While thinking about this I have internally been minimising this in comparison to what I did in university. I still put academia on a bit of a pedestal, which I think is something I need to dial back on. When you boil it down, in both cases, the content being shared was "We did a thing, here's how it went." And while at uni I had lofty ambitions of adding to the sum total of humanity's knowledge, being honest my current job helps make life a little better for a lot more people than any amount of studying oddly behaving crystals.

Anyway, I did a thing, and that's how it went.

Assignment Aftermath

This week two assignments for my finance course were due in. I think I made a tactical error in doing two subjects with mid session assignments and final exams rather than one with a mid session assignment and one with a final assignment, but we live and learn.

I don't think what I submitted was the best I could have done as I did leave it quite late in the process to get serious about working on them. A three day weekend is not really enough time for two 4500 word assignments, even if you have been thinking about the questions for a few months.

I put most of my time into what I though would be the easier assignment and where I thought I'd be able to do better, the subject on economic principles, but I didn't do so great. The last few questions where we had to back up opinions on a few different things I did a huge rush job on and didn't include any references or such, which will cost me a bit. I'm mainly hoping I pass so as not to put too much pressure on me for the final exam.

I'm more happy with the second assignment for Law, Regulation and Ethics. I now realize why lawyers make so much money. Laws are very hard to understand. Convoluted references, finicky definitions, references to regulations made and listed elsewhere, mean working out what is and isn't in the law quite a challenge. I have another post brewing about legislation, so more will come out there on that topic.

The last minute approach to the assignments also made life a bit less fun last week. I had to miss the Richard Dawkins talk on Thursday, and on Monday and Tuesday night I only got about 4 or 5 hours sleep. On Wednesday I was absolutely useless at work, barely able to keep one thing in my head at a time, which is really bad because you need to at least keep a name and a location to avoid having to keep asking the person to repeat things. Thursday after about 9 hours sleep I was more my normal self, although I still fell asleep watching TV around 5 o'clock after work.

Employed

So as of Thursday I am once more employed. I do not say gainfully employed, as I don't really think it's a job that needs doing, and it's not one I feel particularly happy about doing. In fact it's something I don't like other people doing to me, and I feel less than stellar doing it.

The good thing about a crappy job is that it is even more motivation to find a bettter job, and it does pay about twice what Centrelink does, and will allow me to avoid a few hassles with them some recent events may cause.

I know I'm being a bit vague on the details, but that's because I really don't want to say exactly what the job is.

The one plus is that they are giving me Wednesday off which I had volunteered to help with the setting up of GenCon which with helping to run a few games over the weekend will score me a free ticket into the convention. This will be my first convention so I'm looking forward to it.

Another job application

Another experiment in doing something a bit different.

To Mark Gordon,
You need me for the Call Centre Operator position that you are looking to fill. Even a short look at what you want and what I can provide shows that I am exactly what you need.

*Excellent written and verbal communication skills - I am an author on two scientific papers while at university, have provided over the phone customer service to an uncountable number of people and have shared these skills with others while teaching English overseas

* Strong interpersonal skills - I am a genuinely friendly person, who while quiet, gets along well with pretty much everyone. I like to help out and make sure things go well for everyone.

* Previous customer service - I worked for over a year in an inbound call centre (on what was originally a six-week contract) where I consistently was the top of my group in providing high quality service while meeting key performance indicators such as average call time and adherence to schedule. Attention to detail, care for the customer and a quick mind were key to achieving this.

If you want me to solve your staffing problem by doing a great job, then call me straight away on xxxx xxxxxx and let me make your life just that little bit easier.

Yours sincerely,

Fan Mail 2

Well, not so much fan mail as a goodbye letter. This was written by one of my students I've taught for almost a year.

Since it is a bit tricky to read in the picture the text is exactly as follows.

to kevin
Hello this is cindy.
I hear that you will go back to your countty so I am sad.
After you go to your country bat don't forget us.
live healthy and huppily.
Don't forget me. and I won't forget you too. Good bye
2.2.2009
Friday
Sincerely
cindy

While I doubt I'll forget completely about any of the kids I've taught (although there are a few I wouldn't mind forgetting) things like this do stick and show you you haven't been completely useless at the job.

On a less pleasant note, it seems this is no longer in my souvenir box, which causes me some concern as to where it may have gone. I have done a slight culling of the souvenir box, but there's no way I would have got rid of it. I really hope it turns up somewhere.

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Writing time: 33 minutes (I went looking for the previous letter)
Time since last post: half a day or so
Current media: The Legend of the Seeker

The Final Variations on a Theme

Every month, we have to write reports for all the kids we teach. This is generally tedious work in which each report follows a general theme with slight changes in vocabulary and phrasing. Only the exceptionally good or bad get a more personalised version.

This month has been a little more poignant as this is the last time I have to write reports. For the most part, I've followed the same template as previous months, but I did do a bit more for a few students. These were the students who I've taught the longest, thirteen or fourteen months. I'm currently teaching five students who were in my very first classes.

There is also one class I got in my second month which I've had since then. It is a very young class and started out at the lowest level the school teaches. The first day with them I gave them English names (a mix of Buffy actors and people I knew from Japan) and taught them "Hello" and "My name is ...". I'm dreading telling them this week I'm leaving next week. Looking at how much these little kids have learnt while I've been teaching them impresses me. It also makes me feel really slack for how little Korean I've learnt.

So for these kids I've been teaching for most of my time here, my reports this time have had a longer term perspective than my usual reports that focus on just the most recent month.

On the other end of the spectrum was a new student in my middle school class who has been to a total of two classes so far and has a big test covering about three months worth of stuff next class. Their report was short and optimistic, but otherwise lacking in content.

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Writing time: 20 minutes
Time since last post: an hour
Current media: The Usual Suspects

Lucky Bastard

This guy is one lucky bastard. Getting paid to build lego models all day. Why isn't that my job?

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Writing time: 2 minutes (this isn't a very long post)
Time since last post: a day?
Current media: Stargate Continuum

Score

Today at the start of one of my classes, one of the kids gave me a small box wrapped in black paper. This is not the first time something like this has happened, and as I usually do in this situation I thanked the student in Korean and put it aside to look at later. When I opened the box I found that it contained two pairs of socks. Certainly better than a kick in the pants.

Previous scores from students include some hankies from a student in Japan when the kids school was closing down, a box of tea from a student who recently went to China for a month (that's going to be shipped home to my mother and grandmother (I'm pretty sure my student won't find out)), various snacks and candy, and once an elaborate decorative egg bauble thingy, which again is something I doubt I'd ever get for myself, but in all of these cases it's more the sentiment of it than the actual item.

There's actually a teachers day over here, where students and parents used to give gifts to the teachers. It mainly applies to regular school teachers, but it does overflow a bit into the English academies. However, people went quite overboard in trying to get the teachers to give the most attention to their children (I've heard of cases of teachers getting new cars or huge amounts of cash) to the point where the Government has actually made teachers day a day off for school children, so they can't go to school and give their exorbitant gifts to their teachers (although why they can't give them a day later I don't quite get).

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Writing time: 12 minutes
Time since last post: an hour or so
Current media: Still Star Trek Voyager

Is making steady progress

I just finished writing my monthly student reports. I added it up and there were 65 of them. Quite a lot of them finish with the phrase "S/He is making steady progress". This is a weasel phrase that is quite useful. Note that it does not say how much progress is being made, or how fast they are making progress, just that they are doing so at a steady rate. But it sounds good.

There is a code to the comments I wrote. There is a different between good, capable, quiet but capable and able students. Some students work well, while others work diligently. Some are active participants, some are enthusiastic participants. Others participate enthusiastically or actively.

Annoying kids get sometimes lacks focus, lacks focus, or is a distraction depending on how bad they are.

I think the best report would be something along the lines of "x is a good student who works well in class." followed by a more specific comment about a specific strength of the student. There are maybe one or two of those per class.

I have thought about writing a small program to automatically generate the reports. Something for the command line that would take a few arguments and then pick a few relevant comments and organise them in a random order (a lot of my reports sound kind of the same. Some variation would be good.). Of course, I only really think about this while I'm writing the reports, so it never actually gets done. At this stage, I'm probably better of just to keep writing them out, as I've kind of got into a routine with them.

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Writing time: 25 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: The Office

Profile Update

I have just updated my profile on the right since I noticed part of it is no longer accurate. Where it once read "regularly shaved" it now reads "irregularly shaved". This is actually a return to the previous version. I changed it to regularly shaved while I was in Japan because while I was working in Japan I would usually shave every day that I worked. Here, I usually only shave once or twice a week. This is mainly because the dress code here is more lax than the dress code in Japan. I wear almost the same clothes as I did in Japan, with the exception that I don't wear a tie here (One day I did wear a tie because they were taking photos for a brochure and I felt like I'd missed wearing it, which is weird because I would usually take it off as soon as I left work in Japan, but that also did change with time). In black trousers and a long sleeve collared shirt, I'm usually the most formally dressed guy. Others range from collared shirts to t-shirts, with the dress code requiring a collar. As in Japan, the women get kind of a free ride, with pretty much anything that looks reasonably respectable passing muster.

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Writing time: 12 minutes
Time since last post: 75 minutes
Current media: Same as last post

Naming Day

On Wednesday I got to name my first kids at work. After some consideration of where to get names from, I used the following two sources this time. The first were actors from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I figured this was better than characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The other source were people I knew in Japan. Finally, one student seemed to already have a name in English, so she obviously kept that. The list of names is as follows
Jully (The kid already with an English name. I'm guessing this is a misspelling of Julie)
Aly (Alyson Hannigan)
Emma (Emma Caulfield)
Mark (one of my housemates in Japan)
Karl (another housemate from Japan)
Dani (a coworker from Japan)
Vera (another coworker from Japan)
Kim (yet another coworker from Japan (sort of, she worked at a different branch to me) (It was only in hindsight that I thought perhaps Kim would not be a good English name since Kim is a common Korean name as well. Ah well))

The kids were pretty young and have very little knowledge of English, so trying to get across the idea that this is your English name was a little bit of a challenge, but after a little bit of time they started to get the idea. The lessons at this level are a bit hard to make last 40 minutes (learning table, chair and the letter B if not done carefully can go very quickly).

I think next time I may use people I knew from Australia, or actors from a Star Trek series.

edit: A new kid showed up the other day, so another name has been added to the list.

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Writing time: 35 minutes
Time since last post: an hour or so
Current media: still season 3 of Deep Space 9

Bah

Blasted Koreans. On Thursday I sent a bunch of documents to the school that had offered me the job, and sent them an email letting them know the tracking number and letting them know my uncle would be sending stuff as soon as possible from Australia. So on Tuesday my uncle sends the stuff and emails me the details so I can let them know, which I do so. Then I get a reply back saying they were worried things were taking too long and that they'd given the position to someone already in Korea.

God damn it.

I do not believe that this was an unreasonable period of time. The documents needed to be collected from the university to ensure that they met the requirements for the visa (I checked with the university and that was the only way they'd guarantee it met the requirements). My uncle works so can't just go in on the spur of the moment. The documents were sent yesterday should arrive in Korea tomorrow, and given a processing time of one week for the visa in Korea, that still left one week for me to organise my flights and shipping stuff to Korea and home.

Now the recruitment company have organised another interview with a different school, this time in Seoul, but it's advertised for a mid December start. With what I've got now, I could probably have made it to the middle of December when I would of got my first paycheck. The middle of January is a lot further away. If I get my pay from NOVA in any form (actual pay or 80% from the government due to bankruptcy) I could make it.

But this is shit. I thought I was all set up and now I've had the rug pulled out from underneath me.

Bah

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Writing time: 11 minutes
Time since last post: 5 days
Current media: iTunes shuffle, currently Beethoven's 5th as performed by Shenzo's Electric Stunt Orchestra

Moving Again

It looks like I'm going to be moving again. The phone interview with the school in Korea went pretty good. About an hour after the interview, I got an email with a job offer and a contract, and instructions for applying for the visa. The job is in a city called Suwon, which is about 40k south of Seoul. The pay seems pretty good, and the job looks a bit easier than here in Japan, although there will probably be more preparation involved and the classes will be bigger.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: a few hours
Current media: None

Recent Events

Lately, life has not been so good. Or more specifically, work has not been so good. Even more specifically, the pay has been not so good. Well, not not so good, but absent, non-existent, late, yet to be paid, etc, etc.

The company is going down the tubes. Last month the teachers pay was 4 days late for most teachers. The Japanese staff are still waiting for their pay from last month. I don't really believe the promise that we'll be paid on the 25th, because that promise came after they failed to pay us on the 19th as they promised.

The actual work is not so bad. Most days have been pretty light of late. This is because the staff have been anticipating teachers not turning up and not filling the schedule, so when everyone does turn up, we all get free lessons.

Yesterday was a different story. There were meant to be five teachers working, but only two turned up. Guess who was one of those two. Yup. Me. My schedule for the day was almost completely full. The maximum size of a class is four students. My first class had three students, my last class was a man to man class where the student pays extra to be the only student, and the rest were four student classes. A few students didn't turn up, so that made it a little easier but it was a daunting schedule to look at. The staff have said they'll try and give me an easy schedule today if it's possible, so that's something to look forward to.

The Japanese staff are having a really rough time. Branches are closing all the time, teachers are not coming in and quitting at massive rates, and students are trying to get as many lessons as they can before it all comes crashing down. Combined with no real leadership from above, it seems that the branch level staff are all working together to try and keep things going. On Friday I ended up going to three different schools, as other schools were so desperate for teachers that they were willing to have someone come out to teach just one lesson, then travel to the next school for one lesson, then back to my regular branch for the rest of the day. I have to say they're doing a good job, but eventually they're going to run out of options.

Another issue is the rate at which branches are being closed. At first it was just some kids schools and small schools, but now more and more schools are closing, and it's more and more obvious that there is no planning going on. Last month some schools closed and the students were offered a transfer to another school. Then early this month they announced that school would close at the end of the month. So now the students have to transfer again, or more likely are going to quit. My school has yet to close, and word is the owner of the building is out of the country so doesn't know what's going on. We've been getting lots of transfer students, and hopefully we'll be getting some teachers from the schools that are closing, but there's no information so far. Apparently there's meant to be training for new teachers at my school today, but the head teacher hasn't got any information about the new guys, so it's pretty likely there not coming. I know I wouldn't come over now if I knew what was going on.

My reaction to all of this was at the beginning denial, but in the last month has gone to a fatalistic panic. After last months late pay, I initially thought they wouldn't be late twice, because they knew it would piss of the teachers, and with no teachers there's no business. But late the pay is, and now I'm looking for other work. I had an interview in Tokyo last week which was good and bad. Good in that they were willing to let me start training straight away, bad in that the training is unpaid, the pay is purely on a commission basis, and although the work is investment based, you have to get your own clients whose money you invest. This is not the sort of thing I can uproot and move to Tokyo for. I've also had a phone interview for teaching in China, but the pay is again good and bad. It's about what a manager in China receives, so you can live like a king over there, but it works out to about $1000 a month, so you can't really save any money. Tomorrow I have a phone interview for a job in South Korea, which is a lot better. I'd also much rather live in Korea than in China. No Great Firewall to start with, and the pay is a lot better (actually a bit better than what I get in Japan. It's about the same amount of money, but they also pay your rent and half your health insurance, plus pay for a return airfare, so that would be pretty good). We'll see how that goes.

This has also had a detrimental effect on my limited social life. The usual Monday night outing has been postponed indefinitely, pending getting some money. My diet is also suffering. For most of the last three weeks, dinner has been instant ramen. Breakfast is a pastry and some juice, or if I'm feeling luxurious, MacDonalds. The activities I've taken to fill the gap are online poker and watching the entirety of the original series of Star Trek.

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Writing time: 41 minutes
Time since last post: 12 days
Current media: Newstopia

Interesting Times

Since last Friday, work has taken on a sort of despondent feel. The company, which has been in trouble for a long time, seems to have entered a death spiral. It started last Friday when most of the teachers were not paid on time. At around 5 pm (after the banks had closed) a fax was sent out to most branches saying that there was a processing problem that meant that it was impossible to complete the deposit of salaries, and that payments would be made on the following Tuesday or Wednesday (Monday was a public holiday), depending on where in Japan you were. This followed an incident two months ago where the salaries of the Japanese staff (they are on a different cycle for pay. Teachers are paid on the 15th, staff on the 27th) was about 5 days late.

At the same time NOVA is closing a large number of branches (I keep hearing about new branches closing). A lot of the closures seem to be kids schools, which honestly can be nothing but a money sink, but nonetheless I quite liked my kids schools and will miss the kids I have taught there (that reminds me, I have photos from my other kids school to post). Were this just a rationalisation of the business, this wouldn't be so bad. But some of the schools closing are quite large, and some smaller schools are staying open. And of course there is the rumour that the closures are due to NOVA being evicted due to unpaid rent. The fact that the list of closures keeps growing seems to suggest that this isn't part of a master plan.

Pretty much everyone is looking for other jobs. None of the teachers expect to be working next month. No one is optimistic about being paid for this month, let alone next month. No one is really motivated to work. I've heard teachers say that they're just coming in because they have nothing to do and don't want to just sit at home. I think I'm going in out of misplaced loyalty and a significant dose of denial.

I've started looking for other jobs (not that seriously, I've applied for one job working in either China or Russia). I'm also reassured by the fact that I can get unemployment benefits for three months. I could try to live cheaply for three months, try and save what I can before bugging out as soon as I get the final payment. Also handy is the fact that a ticket home for me is a mere 35000 yen (about $350 dollars (a whole fucking lot less than what I paid to get over here, although I'm willing to bet the luggage allowance is a lot less)). Right now I'm aiming to just live as cheap as I can until I either find my new job or bug out.

One thing I haven't really considered is that maybe the announcement on Tuesday is some sort of miracle cure for NOVA's problems. If it is, then I will hang around, until early next year, and save as much as I can. But that would be the easy way out, and the odds are beyond unlikely, and approaching the impossible.

I would like to be able to just hang around and keep cruising through life in Japan, but it looks like I'm going to have to put some effort into this for a little while before resuming my cruising ways.

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Writing time: 39 minutes
Time since last post: 4 days
Current media: Battlestar Galactica 3x07

Closing Down

In the last week Nova has announced that it is closing a bunch of branches all over the country (I've heard the number 300 mentioned (Sparta (sorry, couldn't help myself))(holy nested brackets)). This is impacting me as the two kids schools I go to are being closed. I was told about the one at Nigawa closing last week, but thought the one at Obayashi was safe as on the weekend I got a cover form for that school. Today however, I got a cancellation form and was told that Obayashi is closing too.

So at Obayashi this afternoon in addition to me and Tomiko (the regular staff at the kids school) the Nishikita manager came along in a role I've taken to calling "The Harbinger of Doom" to tell the parents about the closure and what their options are (which schools they can transfer to). I'm not sure as my Japanese isn't good enough, but I think some of the parents asked which classes I teach at Nishikita (some of the parents at Nigawa asked that too).

I got a few photos with the some of the kids today (the kinders and some of the seniors). I'll try and get some photos from Nigawa next week. Anyway, here are the photos.

My kinder class. From left to right: Hoshika's younger brother, Hoshika, Chiemi, Ayumi, Yusaaku (in the grip of Nova Usagi) and Tomiko (the staff at Obayashi)

Me and some of my senior kids. Left to Right: Mizuho, Mio (a former student from before my time who turned up today for some reason), Daiki, Yurina and Yusuuke

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Writing time: 25 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
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New Contract

Last Tuesday I signed my new contract with NOVA. Pretty much what I expected, although I was a bit disappointed by the raise I got. The raise I got was 2k yen per month, which is a bit less than what most people I know received (4k per month). There are a few reasons floating around in my head as to why, which are in order of likeliness: the company is in financial troubles and so is being stingy with increases, I'm not as good a teacher as others (I don't really like that one), and the fact that I was late twice (once by about 5 minutes, once by one lesson) not because I was sick or any other external reason, but I just forgot or lost track of time. Probably a combination of all three.

At any rate, a small increment is a bit shit because after one year I have to start paying city tax, which apparently is a fair bit bigger than the increment (by at least a factor of 2-4, maybe more). Ah well, most people don't bother paying, or at least not until the government gets serious about asking about it, although I have heard it can cause problems if you try and visit Japan again later on. But, since I am the type of person I am, I will probably pay the tax.

I'm going to try and sort out renewing my visa tomorrow, but that will mean heading into work early and hoping the copy of my contract for the immigration office has arrived. It wasn't anywhere Friday, but the area manager said it would be at the office by Thursday, so we'll see in the morning. Then I'll have to go into Osaka, and hand in some forms and stuff. Hopefully it won't take too long, as I have to start work at 2:15, so that gives me about 4 hours to pick up the contract, go into Osaka, deal with the bureaucracy, and get back out to Nishinomiya for work.

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Writing time: a while (I started on Tuesday, but didn't get back to it until tonight)
Time since last post: 5 days
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Another Evaluation

On Monday the 9th of July I had a short talk with my BT (head teacher at the school) saying if I wanted a new contract I should put in a request pretty soon. I was a bit surprised as I hadn't expected this for another month or so, but they need time to make sure everything gets sorted before my current contract expires so I guess it's not too soon. As it turns out, he had already scheduled the observation for the next Sunday. Since I was planning on staying past the initial one year contract, I filled out the general request form with the following elaborate request: I would like to request a new contract. Nothing to onerous, and pretty much the standard wording.

Anyway, with that obstacle overcome, the path was clear for my observation. On Sunday, only one thing could stand in the way. The lesson I was scheduled to be observed on was a one student lesson, and the student had a history of not turning up to the lessons she'd booked. Five minutes in, we conceded that this was a temporary defeat and looked to see how it could be rescheduled to fit in with other lessons and the few frees that existed on the schedule for the day. After some switching of regular lessons and voice lessons that involved altering two other peoples schedules, we had me a lesson I could be watched on, and since the student had booked the lesson today, was a pretty good bet to show up, and indeed she did. The lesson went pretty well, even though it wasn't a lesson I'd taught many times before. The feedback session felt a lot better than my mid contract evaluation, which I think is partly to do with the different styles of the BT and the AT.

My main concern now with getting a new contract is if the company is still around by the end of September.

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Writing time: 12 minutes
Time since last post: 5 days
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