Thanksgiving in Japan

So I figured since I mentioned both Thanksgiving and how I was going to talk a bit about my previous stay in Japan in the last post I would talk about how I spent Thanksgiving over there. 

I got invited by one of my other gaijin (foriegner) friends to a tradional Amerian Thanksgiving dinner that he was throwing in the main room of the church we was living above.  It had a full...if a bit small...kitchen.  Everyone invited was to bring a dish..I was going to do mashed potatoes...since they are my FAVORITE! but my friend Sarah had already claimed them. So I decided on Apple Pie.  I am really good with desserts so I was hoping I would be able to make it work in the tiny oven.  When I got there I realized there were a lot more people than I had thought there would be....and turns out, it was a Japanese guy who had lived abroad in the US for a while that suggested the dinner.  Figures right?!? the Japanese guy suggests to a whole bunch of Americans to celebrate an American holiday....something nobody thought of before, and a lot of my friends had been in Japan for a few years!  I was lucky with the pie.  We were cooking it while eating and the person in charge of telling me 45 minutes had elapsed forgot.  Luckily I remembered to check on my own and rescued it from burning!! It turned out delicious!!

That Japanese guy (Masa) and I ended up dating for a while, didn't last long though.  He got a job and was transfered down to Ibaraki and then Osaka a little after Christmas.  It's a shame, he was nice but not so great a boyfriend I was willing to do that far long distance so close to heading back to the US.  Besides he kept making me pick him up (my money in gas) and take him home (30 mins each way, twice everytime we got together).  Never thanked me, and never apologized!

 I have more and better pictures of the 2 of us...but this one is just hilarious that I couldn't resist!

Thanksgiving!

So nothing has been happening out of the norm for a few days, and I've been pondering what to write my next post about.  Basically, I haven't really come up with a lot. 

I did finally get the last of my paperwork in yesterday morning, Donna informed me she forwarded it all to PKC in Japan to file for my COE, which is great to know.  The encouraging "fingers crossed" she added seems hopeful, though it does reinforce how much on the edge my going in February is.  Hopefully that miracle happens.  Winter in Michigan has already started, making me long for Japan in February which will be much more mild than here (unless I get posted up on Hokkaido).  So far, we have had 3 hail storms and it's now snowed 3 times as well....so that would be 6 times we've had frozen water fall on us, and it isn't even the end of November!  Plus, yesterday's snowstorm officially stayed on the ground.  Meaning that it's all down hill from here.  At least over the last few weeks as we were getting snow I got the satisfaction of seeing it melt within the hour.  But, not anymore.  We are due for more snow tonight, so I hear.  It is sure going to make driving home for the holidays interesting.  Hopefully it wont be like the last several Thanksgivings I've been home for.  All 4 years during University I drove home in a white out blizzard...fyi...it was NOT fun!  And of course in Michigan snow (both on the ground and it continuing to fall) can last up to May.  No joke, I've moved out of my dorm during a light snowfall before.  Typically that isn't a normal winter, but it obviously isn't unheard of.  Usually mid-April is when we can look forward to the joyous event that is the end of Winter.

In other news, I got an e-mail from Matty's this morning asking if I had recieved their job offer and information they sent last week. And when I was going to return it to them completely filled out.  Which as I meantioned I had already read and been scared away from working with them.  Any ideas how to break the news that I'm no longer interested in working for them lightly?  They seemed soo nice, I can't help it if they had like 500 crazy rules for a young 20 somethings to follow.  It was like they were asking for only the most hardcore applicant with NO interest in a social life!  I don't plan on much in the way of going out, but you had to inform your family before you left for work if you weren't going to be home for dinner.  What happens when you get the random phone call from a friend at 3 in the afternoon wanting to meet up for dinner?! And even if you did give them that notice, you were still expected to be home by 10pm.  I mean, the homestay option was very cool sounding at first, until you realize the family they place you with are to be your personal conciderate and friendly watch dogs!

Here shortly I'll start going into more details about working in Kawauchi.  Tiny...yes, but I did love it there.  look forward to it!  Oh! And as tomorrow is Thanksgiving I definately wont be getting online.  SO.... HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!

A few Nights of Fun!

So while I spent all that effort driving down to Toronto I didn't want to waste the trip. I ended up making it a weekend out and stayed at a youth hostel for 2 nights. When I arrived and dragged my suitcase to my room...very conviently located right off the main room. A little loud in the morning around breakfast I found out, but great for all the other reasons. Within a few hours of being at the hostel I had managed to make friends with over half of the girls in the room I was staying in....about 7 other people. I'm not sure where most of them were from, but they'd been living in the hostel for a while by the time I stayed there. So they knew Toronto really well, and invited me to join them and the rest of their 20some friends who were going out to the bar that night. It was a lot of fun.One of the guys LOVED my camera..it's one of the samsung dual screen ones...so he sat next to me and kept taking pictures. The 2 of us hit it off really well after that and then we got seperated and subsiquently lost from the group after attempting a "short cut" to the group's intended destination. We walked around for about a half hour trying to find the next bar and then just gave up as our friends were probably already on the move again. We ended up stopping for some pitas at a little street vendor and then ate them on the walk back to were we thought the hostel was. Once back we chilled out and talked for a while.

Once everyone got back...somewhere around 3am...we all gathered in the main room and had a ton of different conversations going.  It was a lot of fun...though I was getting pretty tired!  I think I consummed 3 glasses of tea during this late night chat session.  An attempt to keep myself awake!

About half of the people kept dodging my camera!! But man I love staying in hostels.  My brother-in-law offered to call up his friend who's dad owns a hotel in Toronto to get me a room for free.  Which would have been nice for my bank account...but totally not fun when I was going to be travelling alone.  Now if I was going with some friends...then YES!!! I would have taken him up on the offer.   When going solo I always recomend staying in a hostel, well maybe not in the US.  Check those out first before commiting to them.  But other countries are fabulous at having clean and dependable hostels, and people are from everywhere and are pretty young.  So making a ton of friends from all over the world is easy and a leaves you with an even greater experience. 

Saturday started off a little late....with the extremely late night I stayed in bed till after noon.  When I finally did get up I got ready for the day just in time for one of the girls from the night before to come back in from having had breakfast.  The 2 of us decided to go shopping, she wanted a clubbing dress and I wanted a few coat.  I ended up buying more than just that and had a great few hours wandering the streets of Toronto!  After we got back I wanted something to eat, but she was on a budget so was cooking her own food.  I went out and found a cute little place.  While sitting there eating a bowl of chilli and drinking some coke a creepy guy kept talking to me and then finally gave me his e-mail address even though I had been attempting to ignore him.  After he left a couple who had been sitting nearby started chatting with me about the whole thing.  We ended up getting into a discussion about the differences between America and Canada...and then some things about Japan.  Since I told them why I was in Toronto in the first place.  They seemed really interested and we ended up talking for several hours.  By the time I had gotten back to the hostel my entire group (who I was planning on going out again with) had already left.  I got ready to go clubbing anyways with the plan of just going into the first really clubish place I found. Turns out I was staying right by several clubs.  The one I ended up in was litterally 20 feet from the front door of the hostel.  Really convienet since while waiting in the entry line I realized I forgot a few things and needed to go back!!  I made some friends in the waiting line and stayed with them the entire night...unfortunately I got rid of my camera during my pitstop at the hostel so I don't have any pictures.  We stayed out till close and then I crashed.  Check-out in the morning was a little rough.  I did manage to get out in time though and started the long arduous trip back up to petoskey for work the next day.

Interviews

In the last week I have interviewed at a total of 3 different places.  As noted in my last post, PKC and Heart English school were 2 of them.  I did fail to mention that previous to my first post I had also interviewed with Matty's English School, but upon recieving a copy of their contract later that night...very scary stuff...they quickly got eliminated from my list of choices. 

Since my previous post I was actually given the formal job offers I had said were not yet confirmed.  Heart school sent me their contract in the mail sometime Yesterday, and I read through it.  I can't detect many changes since I worked with them last time.  Though it seems more confusing and they are having you pay more.  Also, something I found extremely strange was if they placed you in Tokyo, Chiba or Yokohama they wouldn't be able to supply you with an apartment....AND they would not act as a gauranteer for you, meaning that if you had no contacts in Japan of your own already, getting housing would be pretty near impossible, as Japan requires all foreigners to have a Japanese native co-sign a lease.  That doesn't seem fair....they place you in the big city and then, what, expect you to live in a cardboard box in the streets?  Aside from this little notation I didn't see anything wrong with the contract as I would most likely never be placed there, but was still unsure about working with them again.

Today, however, I drove down from Petoskey to Toronto to have my interview for PKC.  I was thinking this was going to be a formal interview to decide if they really did want me as a teacher, apparently it was more of a orientation and information seminar.  If we liked everything we saw and heard they had us sign our contracts right there.  Which I did, Donna was even more awesome and helpful in person than she had been on the phone.  And I was already very impressed with how prompt and helpful her responses to my questions and concerns were.  So along with today's other interviewies I officially cast my chips in the PKC basket this morning.

I am suprised they still wanted me.  I mean I know I was a strong candidate, but due to traffic, getting lost, and crazy issues, I ended up being about a half hour late to the meeting for a Job interview to work in Japan...a country that sees being tardy as one of the worst things someone can do no less.  Though to be honest she kind of figured I would be a little late.  I was, as I mentioned DRIVING from Petoskey to Toronto, which on a good day takes a little over 8 hours.  I had only managed to get 3 hours of sleep the night before since I needed to be up and out the door at 2AM.  About 6 hours into my journey I started falling asleep at the wheel, not good!  I looked at the clock and estimated I would be arriving at about 9:45, which was not bad.  I had already stopped for gas once, and missed a few turns due to crazy traffic and road construction.  I figured, plenty of time, I can take a quick nap and still have time to print out my documents, get my passport photos done and change for the interview.  How wrong I was. 

After a 20 minute nap, I started driving again, much refreshed, and all was going smoothy until I actually got into Toronto..and needed gas again.  Which got me lost, wasting precious time that I needed to get to the interview with everything I needed.  I didn't end up getting to the passport photo place till 10:40..cutting it pretty close..but the interview location was only 5 miles away so I figured I should still be able to make it if I could get them printed quickly.  The man working apparently decided the package he was tapping shut needed an ENTIRE roll of packing tape and would just not quit messing with the stupid thing....I could practically hear the clock ticking around me! FINALLY, he put the box down and took my picture.  While I was waiting for them to print, I conviced him to make the copy of my passport I needed, but didn't have the guts to ask for him to also print out my resume.  So by now it was 10:55...obviously I was going to be late...my car was parked about 5 blocks away and I was still in jeans.

Paying for everything I shoved the passport copy and pictures in my purse and sprinted back to my car...I must have looked like a lunatic, but hey I did NOT want to be any later than I was already going to be.  I got back to my car at exactly 11:00 and hopped in and started driving to the interview location....all the while pulling my business suit to the front from the back seat.  Everytime I hit a read light I would take off/put on a different part of my suit. I'm sure the people in the cars next to me got an interesting show while waiting for traffic. I did manage to get dressed....even with a bit of make-up before getting to where I needed to be.  But of course I didn't see the building number and COMPLETELY passed it....on a one way road no less.  This meant I would have to find other roads and do a super long circle back.  By then of course it was 11:20...ok not good, but at least I had finally made it right? 

NOPE, Donna told me suite ###  but failed to mention WHICH suite ###.  There were 4 of them.  I kept staring at the board hoping the answer to where I was supposed to be going would magically appear.  Randomly picking one I went up...by now its 11:30, so I had wasted another 10 minutes downstairs walking in circles.  Luckily my wild guess proved to be correct and I went in.  The people inside welcomed me and quickly filled me in on what I had missed and then continued on with the presentation.....phew.  I feel like I've shaved a couple of years from my life.  Everything went smoothly and I signed up for what looks to be a fun year working with PKC. 

Sorry Heart School, their teaching video and promise of all the help I could ever want during my year of work completely drew me away from my loyalty of working with you again.  Nothing personal!

I'm still not sure when I will be going...February or April, I'll have to hold my breath and hope all my paperwork gets in fast enough to process for the February training session.  Oh, and I made friends with one of my fellow signers today.  After the meeting we hung out for a few hours and I helped fill him in with a few things he may run across while in Japan.

Decisions, decisions!!

So.....it's getting pretty close to two years since I moved back to Michigan after 8 months spent living in Japan, and miss it over there terribly.  Thus my decision to move back!  Actually I hadn't wanted to leave in the first place, but 3 of my best friends and my older sister were all getting married so staying wasn't exactly an option.  I ended up helping all of them with their wedding plans, expecially my sister (I secretly think she is incapable of doing anything without me.  I know it's a terrible thing to say , but sadly it's the truth). 

This time around I am putting my foot down a little more than last time about where I want to teach.  Working with Heart English School was pretty good.  I know a lot of people online are always bashing it and saying they are horrible to work for, but I enjoyed it.  The staff was very friendly and tried to help whenever I needed it, the only thing was where they placed me.  Which I suppose could have been worse.  All the students were fantastic, thou most of the older kids didn't really try all that hard.  But then you get that with Junior High schools no matter where you live.  English expecially, we were in such a remote place even I, non-Japanese speaker that I was, began to think English was pointless.   It was a 45 minute drive to reach the nearest train station and grocery store! I seriously think it might be the smallest villiage (yes, ladies and gentleman, it is still a village) in Japan.

Look up: Kawauchi mura, Fukushima ken Japan if you are curious, but here is a bit of a preview!

I'm a small town girl anyways so I was able to survive it, but I want to go somewhere with a little more night life this time around. I mean come on, I'm only 24! 

So here is my delema.  I have essentially been hired at 2 companies, I still have the formalities to go through, but both have told me they want to hire me.  Both companies in themselves would be perfectly acceptable to me, and have both agreed to work with me on my placement requirements, but they are completely different.

Option 1 is PKC (Peppy Kids Club)

The positives:

While reading other people's blogs, forums discussions, and by talking with my interviewer PKC sounds like a really great school to work for.  AND, if I managed to get all my paperwork together quickly (in like a week) Donna (my current contact) wants to get me over there for the February training session.  Meaning I would get to quit my job sooner, my bosses are OCD about EVERYTHING.  I've put up with it for over a year and my capacity to do so any longer is quickly going down the drain.  This is a very big incentive. Plus according to stories, they meet you at the airport and take you to Nagoya for 2 weeks of trainging.  Training is VERY good.  I would also apparently have more free time/days off.  The lesson plans are already made for me I would, yay!, just have to use my creativity in how I wanted to impliment them.  Which is fantastic. I hate coming up with classroom subject matter, but once it's decided on I am great at figuring out how to present it in class.  Plus, as it's a more eikaiwa (suplimentary or cram) school I would get to sleep in as my classes wouldnt start till the afternoon.  Which does mean I obviously get out later, but I would still most likely have enough private time to do private tutoring, probably before work if I wanted to. 

The negatives:

With the last minute hiring for that trainging session, getting the right size of town is something they might not be able to do. Plus I would prefer to do just kids of nursery school or Elementary ages and PKC is 3 years old all the way up to High School.  As mentioned earlier, I would get out later, I have read this is about 10pm, but could vary.  With this option I would be packing my own lunch, and I have NEVER been good at doing that, let alone in a tiny Japanese kitchen! Plus, as I said this is an eikaiwa, and I have been warned that there is going to be occations where I am the only teacher at the entire school, which means: no comradery at school with my fellow teachers, and class sessions last only for 1 month.  So every month I would have the potential to have all new students and never see the old ones again. This does not boad well for learning names. 

Option 2 is to sign back up with Heart English Schools. 

The positives:

I have worked with them before and know how everything works as well as some of the staff member at the head office.  One of which I never did lose contact with.  Plus, they are definately giving me EXACTLY what I want.  I made specific requests of the smallest size town I was willing to work in, if it was less than an hour train ride to a big city...or right in a big city, plus they seemed ok with my Elementary age level request too. In the Elementary I got to eat Kyushoku (school lunch) with my students, which was great for building a bond between us, I got to eat good Japanese food (most of the time) instead of attempting it myself. With this option, I would essentially work the classic 8-5 job (at the same schools, and with the same students and teachers for the full year) which if I wanted to, would be perfect for picking up extra work part time at an eikaiwa or doing private tutoring.  Again, I'm not certian I would want to, but it is always nice to know for certian you do have that option. 

The Negatives:

I definately wont be going till April which a bummer, but this might be happening with PKC anyways.  I'm currently unsure of the pay I'd be getting from Heart as I haven't officially been hired, but from what I remember it is on the lower end of the range for English teachers.  So after rent, bills, and grocerys I would probably be more strapped for cash to travel.  As I said, I know the Heart system and this means when I get off the airplane in Narita, tired and jet lagged I have to make my way to Mito, find the hotel, get all my luggage there, and check in all on my own.  Something I feel more confient of this time, but last time it scared the crap out of me.  In an Elementary school, I would be the only one teaching in the class.  Meaning the main teacher would be sitting at their desk in the back "supervising" but pretty much ignoring us.  So I would be completely in charge of deciding for every grade and every class an entire school year's worth of subject material, not something I look forward to.

What do you all think?