It hit me recently that when I told my family I was moving to Japan, they didn't argue with that decision. They didn't even grill me on the details of why. It was just kinda accepted. So I haven't really been forced to articulate why I needed to come here, why I needed to work for a Japanese company. Other than I needed to. There's a reason there, but its worrisome I can't articulate it better.
That worry and doubt of course leads to asking if this is the right path for me, when there were any number of options that didn't involve leaving the states. (Most of them revolved around gainful employment, which I wasn't otherwise finding, but that's a different story.) But thinking about this in November, when I went back to campus for The Game and had a chance to see a glimpse of what my college friends were up to, something else hit me:
"Oh crap. Everyone's so much happier than me".
Maybe "happier" wasn't the right word for it. "Doing better"?
I was jealous of how much of the college network everyone else seemed to retain even after moving away. A staggering proportion of my JE friends ended up in the DC area, and get to see each other all the time. A further staggering amount of couples stayed together, something I had considered so impossible after my own experiences with distance. I thought it so impossible that I didn't even dare to ask before Graduation what they were planning on doing afterwards, assuming it would be a touchy subject. Most everyone had jobs in something they really wanted to do (at this point I was still jobhunting and feeling pretty anxious about it).
Nobody else had an hour commute to and from work, nobody else had lost 10 pounds because of a spartan budget, nobody else struggled with something so basic as buying groceries because they couldn't read the label.
Of course, some of this is just the inevitably human tendency of thinking the grass is always greener. And realistically, I'm sure everyone else has their share of difficult things they're dealing with that I didn't get during our too short (always too short) reunions. In the day and a half of alumni coming back to campus, I only got serious, lengthy conversations with a small handful of people as I tried to see everyone at overlapping events.
Corinna (one of my JE friends, who of course knows lots of other friends from college working near her in NY, and has a comfy living situation, and is still together with her college sweetheart, yadayada) came for a visit two weeks ago on her way to visit her family in China, and spent the weekend at my place. It was great to see her for many reasons, including making the world feel a little more connected, that a Yale friend might casually drop in to Shinkawasaki station for a visit. She also provided me with perhaps a much-needed dose of perspective.
To a lot of my friends, I'm the one with the enviable position, the incredible freedom to jetset around the world. Somebody is paying me, not because I produce a profit for them, but so that I can invest in myself. I'm in such a fantastical wonderland every day that seeing Mt. Fuji or eating fried squid is mundane.
Corinna is very wise. Also she brought these AWESOME maple cream cookies. God bless Canada.
Again, because I am delinquent on pictures, instead please look at the internet-famous Shironeko blog, a series of videos devoted to stacking things on top of cats.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Third Semester
We're now two weeks into the third semester of classes, and its been a haul.
Here's a breakdown of my week:
Politics & Economics - M&Th, 10:00 -12:00
This is fun because I know diddly squat about economics and now I'm learning about them in my non-native language. But we're using articles taken from a college level textbook, which is in itself pretty exciting. The reading for this class tends to be the toughest assignments I have, if for no other reason I can't keep track of all the different departments in the many layers of bureaucracy.
Modern Japanese History - MTuThF, 1:30 -3:00
The first day we talked about Meiji, and I was all "Yaaaaay this was my senior essay topic I can say lots and people will think I'm smart yaaaaay" and then by day 2 we had moved past Meiji. And then I was sad. The class covers from 1900 to the present, but the bulk of the material is Postwar stuff.
Integrated Japanese - TuW, 10:00-12:00
Nothing too exciting, just a straight-up grammar class. Homework is usually just writing example sentences for a grammar pattern, so its comparatively pretty manageable.
Business Japanese - F 10:00-12:00
The first hour involves roleplays of set phrase and interactions with keigo (the elevated, I-am-sorry-for-committing-an-inconvenience-upon-you-by-my-very-existence style of speaking), and the second hour is a series of practical workshops on resumes, interviews, stuff like that. Since I'm the one person in the class already with a job lined up, I was volunteered to go first for the panel interview next week. It will be a six on one interview with the other students poring over my resume and preparing questions as representatives of the company. The Sensei will play the role of (what I think translates to) "Chief Tormentor" and be mean to me. To see how fast I cave under pressure. Waaaaah T_T
Outside of the regular classes, there's also...
Calligraphy painting - Tu 3:15-5:00
My handwriting is lousy to begin with, but that's all the more reason to try to learn the stylized painting techniques for kanji characters. I still don't excel, but I'm approaching what I might dare to call adequacy. The teacher compliments us (in all sincerity) "oh look how good you're getting at writing your own name!". Makes me feel a little bit like a kindergardener. The sensei also tells me that my characters have their own "distinct interestingness", (独特な面白さ）which I think is a polite way of saying I'm doing it wrong.
By the way, the characters I chose to spell my name are
井惇 (Eaton: "well" and "considerate")
伊雷 (Eli: "having style" and "thunder")
Business - Th 3:15-5:00
This is different than my Business Japanese class, and also different from the Business & Society class additionally offered by the center. (You'd think they'd be more creative with names). Its the only lecture class I've had here, and also the least interesting. We receive upwards of 30 pages of charts and graphs each time, and the teacher points out a couple fun facts, without a very clear path of where he's going. Someone best described it as the kind of one-sided conversation you have when you sit down next to the drunk old guy at the bar.
Apart from just the class hours, school day itself is pretty long--I'm almost always in the building by 9 AM preparing for morning, working through lunch to prepare for afternoon class, and staying until the building closes around 5 doing homework, so I keep myself pretty busy.
In lieu of having pretty pictures, I shall instead introduce something else japanese-y. The cellphone carrier Softbank has a commercial campaign centering around the antics of the Shirato family, mainly starring the iconic white dog Otoosan (Dad). I'm not sure how these commercials sell phones, but they're entertaining. Softbank also manages to sell a lot of Otoosan merchandise in the process.
Here's a breakdown of my week:
Politics & Economics - M&Th, 10:00 -12:00
This is fun because I know diddly squat about economics and now I'm learning about them in my non-native language. But we're using articles taken from a college level textbook, which is in itself pretty exciting. The reading for this class tends to be the toughest assignments I have, if for no other reason I can't keep track of all the different departments in the many layers of bureaucracy.
Modern Japanese History - MTuThF, 1:30 -3:00
The first day we talked about Meiji, and I was all "Yaaaaay this was my senior essay topic I can say lots and people will think I'm smart yaaaaay" and then by day 2 we had moved past Meiji. And then I was sad. The class covers from 1900 to the present, but the bulk of the material is Postwar stuff.
Integrated Japanese - TuW, 10:00-12:00
Nothing too exciting, just a straight-up grammar class. Homework is usually just writing example sentences for a grammar pattern, so its comparatively pretty manageable.
Business Japanese - F 10:00-12:00
The first hour involves roleplays of set phrase and interactions with keigo (the elevated, I-am-sorry-for-committing-an-inconvenience-upon-you-by-my-very-existence style of speaking), and the second hour is a series of practical workshops on resumes, interviews, stuff like that. Since I'm the one person in the class already with a job lined up, I was volunteered to go first for the panel interview next week. It will be a six on one interview with the other students poring over my resume and preparing questions as representatives of the company. The Sensei will play the role of (what I think translates to) "Chief Tormentor" and be mean to me. To see how fast I cave under pressure. Waaaaah T_T
Outside of the regular classes, there's also...
Calligraphy painting - Tu 3:15-5:00
My handwriting is lousy to begin with, but that's all the more reason to try to learn the stylized painting techniques for kanji characters. I still don't excel, but I'm approaching what I might dare to call adequacy. The teacher compliments us (in all sincerity) "oh look how good you're getting at writing your own name!". Makes me feel a little bit like a kindergardener. The sensei also tells me that my characters have their own "distinct interestingness", (独特な面白さ）which I think is a polite way of saying I'm doing it wrong.
By the way, the characters I chose to spell my name are
井惇 (Eaton: "well" and "considerate")
伊雷 (Eli: "having style" and "thunder")
Business - Th 3:15-5:00
This is different than my Business Japanese class, and also different from the Business & Society class additionally offered by the center. (You'd think they'd be more creative with names). Its the only lecture class I've had here, and also the least interesting. We receive upwards of 30 pages of charts and graphs each time, and the teacher points out a couple fun facts, without a very clear path of where he's going. Someone best described it as the kind of one-sided conversation you have when you sit down next to the drunk old guy at the bar.
Apart from just the class hours, school day itself is pretty long--I'm almost always in the building by 9 AM preparing for morning, working through lunch to prepare for afternoon class, and staying until the building closes around 5 doing homework, so I keep myself pretty busy.
In lieu of having pretty pictures, I shall instead introduce something else japanese-y. The cellphone carrier Softbank has a commercial campaign centering around the antics of the Shirato family, mainly starring the iconic white dog Otoosan (Dad). I'm not sure how these commercials sell phones, but they're entertaining. Softbank also manages to sell a lot of Otoosan merchandise in the process.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Oh hey look I have a blog (明けましておめでとう）
I have been hardcore neglecting this blog. More backlogs of stories to come, but a couple things for now:
I have employable job skills! (lolwut)
I went back to the states in November for the Boston Career Forum, the world's largest English/Japanese career forum. So I flew to 11 hours to Boston to interview with companies that also flew to Boston, even though their Tokyo offices are generally about 30-40 minutes from my apartment. Yeah. I had a hard time explaining that one.
BUT- a couple weeks after I got back, I got a full employment offer from Rakuten. Just accepted it right before the new year, so for the first time in 15 months I am not thinking about a job search, at all. Funny thing though: I still know very little about the concrete job details.
Fastest explanation of Rakuten is that its the Amazon of Japan, but it also has a lot of subsidiaries including travel, electronic money, investments, even wedding planning. When I start in October I'll have a month or two of training/evaluation and then they'll put me where the they think I'd be the best fit. Seems like this should work out well for somebody with an interest in everything but necessarily "tangible" job skills (oh hey, me!). But my various investigations into company atmosphere and happiness of current employees give me good vibes. (doesn't hurt that the pay is probably the most I could get as a new grad without going into finance and banking)
Did a lot of studying over the break, and most notably, I finished the exams on all 1945 of the Jōyō kanji (daily use characters), the characters required in primary/secondary education and generally used as a guideline of basic reading proficiency for newspapers and such.
Of course, the list was updated two years ago to now include 2136 characters. (jerk move, Ministry of Education). But when I originally set the goal to master all the Jōyō kanji, there were only 1945 at the time. So it still counts.
Third semester starts on Monday, reputed to be the hardest term academically. I'll be adding an Econ class, a business Japanese class, and a contemporary history class. The work so far seems challenging and interesting, and by this point we're using pretty much exclusively textbooks intended for native speakers.
To make this post more interesting, a mildly offensive (but still hilarious) example of how Japanese pop groups don't quite get how its insensitive to parody other cultures. T-ara, which is actually a korean pop group that also produces Japanese versions of their hits, dress up like Tiger Lily, and wave their palms over their mouths going "wowowowowowowo" as they dance around the teepees:
I have employable job skills! (lolwut)
I went back to the states in November for the Boston Career Forum, the world's largest English/Japanese career forum. So I flew to 11 hours to Boston to interview with companies that also flew to Boston, even though their Tokyo offices are generally about 30-40 minutes from my apartment. Yeah. I had a hard time explaining that one.
BUT- a couple weeks after I got back, I got a full employment offer from Rakuten. Just accepted it right before the new year, so for the first time in 15 months I am not thinking about a job search, at all. Funny thing though: I still know very little about the concrete job details.
Fastest explanation of Rakuten is that its the Amazon of Japan, but it also has a lot of subsidiaries including travel, electronic money, investments, even wedding planning. When I start in October I'll have a month or two of training/evaluation and then they'll put me where the they think I'd be the best fit. Seems like this should work out well for somebody with an interest in everything but necessarily "tangible" job skills (oh hey, me!). But my various investigations into company atmosphere and happiness of current employees give me good vibes. (doesn't hurt that the pay is probably the most I could get as a new grad without going into finance and banking)
Did a lot of studying over the break, and most notably, I finished the exams on all 1945 of the Jōyō kanji (daily use characters), the characters required in primary/secondary education and generally used as a guideline of basic reading proficiency for newspapers and such.
Of course, the list was updated two years ago to now include 2136 characters. (jerk move, Ministry of Education). But when I originally set the goal to master all the Jōyō kanji, there were only 1945 at the time. So it still counts.
Third semester starts on Monday, reputed to be the hardest term academically. I'll be adding an Econ class, a business Japanese class, and a contemporary history class. The work so far seems challenging and interesting, and by this point we're using pretty much exclusively textbooks intended for native speakers.
To make this post more interesting, a mildly offensive (but still hilarious) example of how Japanese pop groups don't quite get how its insensitive to parody other cultures. T-ara, which is actually a korean pop group that also produces Japanese versions of their hits, dress up like Tiger Lily, and wave their palms over their mouths going "wowowowowowowo" as they dance around the teepees:
Monday, December 5, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
I have 18 roommates
So I very recently moved into a new apartment, with lots of Japanese roommates. It's a "share house" which is basically a college dorm for big people. But I only moved in 1.5 days before I left Japan for the week I spent in the States, so I hadn't yet met most of the roomies very much.
But on the national holiday the day before Thanksgiving (no relation), many of the roomies decided to get bellig. So I got home from class, passed out by 5 pm due to mega jetlag, and woke up around 10 or 11 pm to find a party in my house. They shared the shochu (vodka, ish) and whiskey liberally, but basically everyone else had a fairly low alcohol tolerance so there were a lot of red faces.
Gaydar is culturally subjective. In the states, I have surprisingly good gaydar. If I can tell at all, I usually pick up on the 'mo vibe upon the first eye-contact when meeting someone new. This is not necessarily true in Japan, in large part because much of the hip/fashionable clothing for young men would be effeminate--dare I say fabulous--by our standards.
One of my housemates, Mochi, is cute as a button and flirtatious with anything that moves and basically a Japanese version of my college roommate Kelvin. I had been wondering about him, but as the drinks kept pouring themselves the following happened:
Mochi: I want to study English so I can meet a good guy. I just want Zak Efron to touch me. I'd say "No Zak, no!" but really I would want it.
Erriot: Oh, so you're gay.
Mochi: Who told Erriot I was gay?!
Lolwut. This was not the first loaded-with-gayness thing he said, but it was definitely the most unmistakable.
Added fun note, many of roommates go by vomit-inducingly cute nicknames. Like, Okazaki Hiroyuki goes by Okapi. His bestie Ogawa Chihiro goes by Ogachi. I swear that Okapi and Ogachi are different evolved stages of the same pokemon.
For Thanksgiving itself, it was my first time not with family. Bummer. But to deaden the pain by eating my feelings, I made an imitation of Sweet Potato Casserole to share with the roomies. Japan does not have sweet potatoes, but this did not stop me. I made do with Satsuma-imo, which are vaguely sweet-potato-ish. But purple on the outside and yellow on the inside.
Also, explaining "Casserole" to people not from a culture inundated with casserole is surprisingly hard. "Um... you can make it out of lots of things. It can be tuna or it can have pasta. But its a big thing you eat for dinner. And its not a dessert food unless is sweet potato casserole, when it is."
But on the national holiday the day before Thanksgiving (no relation), many of the roomies decided to get bellig. So I got home from class, passed out by 5 pm due to mega jetlag, and woke up around 10 or 11 pm to find a party in my house. They shared the shochu (vodka, ish) and whiskey liberally, but basically everyone else had a fairly low alcohol tolerance so there were a lot of red faces.
Gaydar is culturally subjective. In the states, I have surprisingly good gaydar. If I can tell at all, I usually pick up on the 'mo vibe upon the first eye-contact when meeting someone new. This is not necessarily true in Japan, in large part because much of the hip/fashionable clothing for young men would be effeminate--dare I say fabulous--by our standards.
 |
| Today's featured item of Japanese Goods with Questionably Translated Names: STRAIGHT TEA. They did not have any GAY TEA in stock. |
Mochi: I want to study English so I can meet a good guy. I just want Zak Efron to touch me. I'd say "No Zak, no!" but really I would want it.
Erriot: Oh, so you're gay.
Mochi: Who told Erriot I was gay?!
Lolwut. This was not the first loaded-with-gayness thing he said, but it was definitely the most unmistakable.
Added fun note, many of roommates go by vomit-inducingly cute nicknames. Like, Okazaki Hiroyuki goes by Okapi. His bestie Ogawa Chihiro goes by Ogachi. I swear that Okapi and Ogachi are different evolved stages of the same pokemon.
For Thanksgiving itself, it was my first time not with family. Bummer. But to deaden the pain by eating my feelings, I made an imitation of Sweet Potato Casserole to share with the roomies. Japan does not have sweet potatoes, but this did not stop me. I made do with Satsuma-imo, which are vaguely sweet-potato-ish. But purple on the outside and yellow on the inside.
Also, explaining "Casserole" to people not from a culture inundated with casserole is surprisingly hard. "Um... you can make it out of lots of things. It can be tuna or it can have pasta. But its a big thing you eat for dinner. And its not a dessert food unless is sweet potato casserole, when it is."
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Adventures in foreign medical systems
After a pretty full week, I had been looking forward to Saturday to catch up on work, sleep, and a party I had been assisting to coordinate in Tokyo. This didn't happen when I woke up with what felt like strep throat.
First couple hours of the day I contemplated dragging myself to the drugstore a few blocks away for what I knew worked pretty well on sore throats. I finally got the OTC stuff but it didn't seem to help as much as I had remembered, so I started looking up international clinics in the area, or places that at least would participate directly in the HTH insurance I'm receiving from Yale. (Students of IUC are supposed to enroll in the Japanese national health insurance, which would have made this a lot easier. But Yale pays extra for this service. I'll get reimbursed eventually, but there'll be more paperwork) But, all of these places were an hour + trip away, or closed on saturdays, so I was gonna call it quits.
It's hard enough when I'm healthy to call around in Japanese looking for a place, and then take the train and walk there and get lost for half an hour because the Japanese system of street addresses is useless and then navigate a bunch of unfamiliar bureaucratic procedures, so when I'm sick enough that getting out of bed is a challenge I wasn't really up to it. Armed with the knowledge of webmd.com, I knew strep will go away on its own, and the antiobiotics suppress contagiousness and generally not the actual symptoms, so I was content to wait in my bed until it went away.
But my symptoms were getting worse, so I finally pushed through to find a clinic. Interesting things different about the medical system here:
America's big on privacy and always has the waiting area cordoned off from the reception desk where patients discuss symptoms and payments with the nurse; that didn't seem to be a concern here. I'm used to filling out a complete medical questionnaire about anything that has ever happened to anyone in my family when I go to a new clinic for the first time, but the only survey I did was about the current condition.
I had heard that Japanese doctors tend to be brusque and efficient without much concern for bedside manner, and I guess that stereotype was confirmed but not necessarily in a bad way. He looked at my throat and nose and very quickly decided it was "風邪”, a cold, and subscribed me antibiotics. I asked if we should also do a strep test, since American doctors would usually do that as well, but he was confident that he'd prescribe the same things regardless of the test results and didn't feel the need. I felt lucky that my japanese level was advanced to know things like tonsillitis (扁桃炎、literally "flat peach inferno") because he didn't try to explain anything beyond that.
Although I wonder if the usage of kaze is wider in Japanese than it is in English, because I know most colds are actually viral and prescription antibiotics have no effect. And I definitely wouldn't call tonsils as large mine "the sniffles". But, the prescription drugs seem to be helping at least. Maybe the microorganisms responsible in Japan are more likely to be cold bacteria than cold viruses?
Afterwards, trekked into Tokyo for my appointment to sign the contract and pick up the key (yay!) for my new apartment. And then made it home through Tokyo rush hour commuter traffic, in the rain. I am just rocking out at the unreasonably hard being-an-adult challenges this week.
Now just five days until I return to the states for interviews at the Boston Career Forum, partying at the Sigma Chi 25th Reunion, and reminding hahvahd how many dead goats they suck at The Game!
First couple hours of the day I contemplated dragging myself to the drugstore a few blocks away for what I knew worked pretty well on sore throats. I finally got the OTC stuff but it didn't seem to help as much as I had remembered, so I started looking up international clinics in the area, or places that at least would participate directly in the HTH insurance I'm receiving from Yale. (Students of IUC are supposed to enroll in the Japanese national health insurance, which would have made this a lot easier. But Yale pays extra for this service. I'll get reimbursed eventually, but there'll be more paperwork) But, all of these places were an hour + trip away, or closed on saturdays, so I was gonna call it quits.
It's hard enough when I'm healthy to call around in Japanese looking for a place, and then take the train and walk there and get lost for half an hour because the Japanese system of street addresses is useless and then navigate a bunch of unfamiliar bureaucratic procedures, so when I'm sick enough that getting out of bed is a challenge I wasn't really up to it. Armed with the knowledge of webmd.com, I knew strep will go away on its own, and the antiobiotics suppress contagiousness and generally not the actual symptoms, so I was content to wait in my bed until it went away.
But my symptoms were getting worse, so I finally pushed through to find a clinic. Interesting things different about the medical system here:
America's big on privacy and always has the waiting area cordoned off from the reception desk where patients discuss symptoms and payments with the nurse; that didn't seem to be a concern here. I'm used to filling out a complete medical questionnaire about anything that has ever happened to anyone in my family when I go to a new clinic for the first time, but the only survey I did was about the current condition.
I had heard that Japanese doctors tend to be brusque and efficient without much concern for bedside manner, and I guess that stereotype was confirmed but not necessarily in a bad way. He looked at my throat and nose and very quickly decided it was "風邪”, a cold, and subscribed me antibiotics. I asked if we should also do a strep test, since American doctors would usually do that as well, but he was confident that he'd prescribe the same things regardless of the test results and didn't feel the need. I felt lucky that my japanese level was advanced to know things like tonsillitis (扁桃炎、literally "flat peach inferno") because he didn't try to explain anything beyond that.
Although I wonder if the usage of kaze is wider in Japanese than it is in English, because I know most colds are actually viral and prescription antibiotics have no effect. And I definitely wouldn't call tonsils as large mine "the sniffles". But, the prescription drugs seem to be helping at least. Maybe the microorganisms responsible in Japan are more likely to be cold bacteria than cold viruses?
Afterwards, trekked into Tokyo for my appointment to sign the contract and pick up the key (yay!) for my new apartment. And then made it home through Tokyo rush hour commuter traffic, in the rain. I am just rocking out at the unreasonably hard being-an-adult challenges this week.
Now just five days until I return to the states for interviews at the Boston Career Forum, partying at the Sigma Chi 25th Reunion, and reminding hahvahd how many dead goats they suck at The Game!
 | ||
| Unrelated: best unintentionally hilarious advertisement for a bar, TGIFridays. |
Also unrelated: terrifying but delightful commercial for Dole bananas.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Work and sweat
This week is a break between first and second semesters, but its yet to be that restful. Even when I thought I was done with all of it, I've had a surprising amount of resume/application/paperwork related stuff left over in preparation for next week's move. Also discovered I need to open a bank account tomorrow, which is great considering tomorrow is a national holiday ("Culture Day!") and thus banks are closed.
Tonight was my first full-on Japanese interview, conducted via skype. It was with Rakuten, one of the companies I would be more interested in and also felt I had a pretty decent chance at. Right before the interview I had a sudden crisis come up with the new apartment that finished only minutes before the interview, so I was maybe a little flustered to begin with. And then as soon as I turned on the skype video camera I realized I had forgotten to change into the dress shirt I had laid out and was instead still in my gym clothes.
Even after that I didn't feel it went that well, but I figure as much as anything I need experience in handling Japanese style interviews, so hopefully it will help me at later attempts. Although I'm bummed I might have missed my shot with Rakuten.
Had another interview with an American company scheduled for late tonight, (11 pm is about the only reasonable time that overlaps with their business hours) but as I was waiting for their representative to appear on skype I received an email saying "double-booked your interview lolwut sorry". Mrrrrrhhh.
More exciting stories: I had a conversation about dicks with the other guys in judo class. I was so happy when I realized the guy was asking me whether Americans shave their pubes. This is a cultural milestone in male bonding, and it means I have been accepted.
It did take me a while to realize that, though, as he was trying to phrase the question in very broken English, and from picking up "under" and "long" I assumed he was asking whether Americans wear longjohns, and I explained "they sometimes do when its really cold". This answer to the pubes question elicited unexpected laughter.
Also had another great conversation with Train Friend, who previously offered that if he met a girl who wanted to date me he would let me know. This time, as we transferred trains, I asked if he smelt something funny. He calmly explained "it is the smell of girls".
In others news of bridging cultural differences, please allow yourself to be enriched by the cultural goodness of Ayaman Japan performing Poi Poi.
Tonight was my first full-on Japanese interview, conducted via skype. It was with Rakuten, one of the companies I would be more interested in and also felt I had a pretty decent chance at. Right before the interview I had a sudden crisis come up with the new apartment that finished only minutes before the interview, so I was maybe a little flustered to begin with. And then as soon as I turned on the skype video camera I realized I had forgotten to change into the dress shirt I had laid out and was instead still in my gym clothes.
Even after that I didn't feel it went that well, but I figure as much as anything I need experience in handling Japanese style interviews, so hopefully it will help me at later attempts. Although I'm bummed I might have missed my shot with Rakuten.
Had another interview with an American company scheduled for late tonight, (11 pm is about the only reasonable time that overlaps with their business hours) but as I was waiting for their representative to appear on skype I received an email saying "double-booked your interview lolwut sorry". Mrrrrrhhh.
More exciting stories: I had a conversation about dicks with the other guys in judo class. I was so happy when I realized the guy was asking me whether Americans shave their pubes. This is a cultural milestone in male bonding, and it means I have been accepted.
It did take me a while to realize that, though, as he was trying to phrase the question in very broken English, and from picking up "under" and "long" I assumed he was asking whether Americans wear longjohns, and I explained "they sometimes do when its really cold". This answer to the pubes question elicited unexpected laughter.
Also had another great conversation with Train Friend, who previously offered that if he met a girl who wanted to date me he would let me know. This time, as we transferred trains, I asked if he smelt something funny. He calmly explained "it is the smell of girls".
In others news of bridging cultural differences, please allow yourself to be enriched by the cultural goodness of Ayaman Japan performing Poi Poi.
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