HE LIVES!!!!
So yeah, I'm alive and stuff. I finally found a day off where I'm at awake and at home for more than 30 minutes so I decuded to update LJ.
Oh, by the way, perhaps it's a little late, but my mom. Doesn't have cancer! Just thought I should let ya'll know. :P
So anyway, where should I start...
Well, as you all know, two years and 5 months ago, I came back to Japan to work as an English conversation teacher at NOVA. I actually really enjoyed it...for the first two or so months. After that I started to realize just what a soul sucking, intellectual black hole of a job being an English conversation teacher. I would say that I liked about 30% of my students, but the other extremely annoying/unmotivated/stupid/just plain strange/all of the above 70% made me slowly begin to hate my job. I really wish I'd updated LJ more while I was working at NOVA, since I have some pretty hilarious stories about my students.
While I spent most of my 14 month stint working at NOVA wanting to quit, it's easy to get stuck in the English teaching trap because it pays well, is dead easy, and you can take a lot of days off. Last year I did a TON of traveling and now I can say I've been almost everywhere I've ever wanted to go to Japan. But my goal is still to visit all 47 prefectures! I'd say now I'm roughly half way there.
So anyways, The Guy Upstairs must have grown tired of listening to my and many other other peoples' bitching and moaning about wanting to quit NOVA, because apparently he decided to put an end to it by giving us all what we wanted so badly. One year ago(almost to the day!), after being unable to pay back all of the money to students who were demanding refunds, NOVA filed for bankruptcy, leaving about 2,000 Japanese employees and 5,000 foreign teachers(myself included, of course) out of a job.
For about 3 months I was out of a job. I spent all the money I had saved working for NOVA just to pay rent and get through life during these 3 months. I also spent a hefty amount of money on transportation, since I spent nearly nearly every weekday running around Tokyo for job hunting. I was really depressed for a while and couldn't sleep well. I seriously contemplated sticking my tail between my legs and going back to Houston(in fact, my mom kept encouraging me to do just that), but I was terrified of having to return to the shitty American job market with no work experience except for a year of English teaching, plus the whole reason I wanted to come back to Japan in the first place was because I wanted to try and find a REAL job where I could use Japanese, and then use that experience to hopefully land a sweet job back in the states after a few years.
After 2 months of extremely stressful job hunting, in December I was offered a job at an international shipping and freighting company, where I've been working since January. I guess you could say I work for the Japanese version of FedEx or UPS. Basically my job is to my make sure my customer's cargo gets where it's supposed to be when it's suppposed, whether the destination be overseas or here in Japan. Although I spend a good 90% of my day sitting at my desk in front of my computer, I've developed something of a God complex recently. I mean, I can move shit...without touching it!!!!!11
Like most jobs, some things about my job suck, especially the whole being extremely busy and having to work overtime thing. However I don't think I would have EVER gotten this oppurtunity back in the states(ESPECIALLY not in H-Town). Plus I'm learning a lot and like most of my co-workers, so I think I'm gonna stick with it for a while.
So that brings me to where I am now.
I will be heading back to Houston for the first time in 2 ½ year this Saturday. But only for a week….which is hardly even long enough to get over the jet lag, but it’s probably gonna be longest vacation I’ll be able to take a while. I reeeeally wanted to go to Austin for even just a couple of days, but I don’t think I’ll have time, and I obviously don’t have my own car anymore, sooo we’ll see what happens. So if all 2 of you who still in live in Houston have some time we should hang out.
Anyways, I’m going to start actually reading LJ and try to catch up on all my friends’ lives. I’ll also do my best to try and update regularly and people posted on mine.
ANYWAYS. That’s all for now. I hope that at least most of you guys don’t hate me. Catch you on the flip side!
Oh, by the way, perhaps it's a little late, but my mom. Doesn't have cancer! Just thought I should let ya'll know. :P
So anyway, where should I start...
Well, as you all know, two years and 5 months ago, I came back to Japan to work as an English conversation teacher at NOVA. I actually really enjoyed it...for the first two or so months. After that I started to realize just what a soul sucking, intellectual black hole of a job being an English conversation teacher. I would say that I liked about 30% of my students, but the other extremely annoying/unmotivated/stupid/just plain strange/all of the above 70% made me slowly begin to hate my job. I really wish I'd updated LJ more while I was working at NOVA, since I have some pretty hilarious stories about my students.
While I spent most of my 14 month stint working at NOVA wanting to quit, it's easy to get stuck in the English teaching trap because it pays well, is dead easy, and you can take a lot of days off. Last year I did a TON of traveling and now I can say I've been almost everywhere I've ever wanted to go to Japan. But my goal is still to visit all 47 prefectures! I'd say now I'm roughly half way there.
So anyways, The Guy Upstairs must have grown tired of listening to my and many other other peoples' bitching and moaning about wanting to quit NOVA, because apparently he decided to put an end to it by giving us all what we wanted so badly. One year ago(almost to the day!), after being unable to pay back all of the money to students who were demanding refunds, NOVA filed for bankruptcy, leaving about 2,000 Japanese employees and 5,000 foreign teachers(myself included, of course) out of a job.
For about 3 months I was out of a job. I spent all the money I had saved working for NOVA just to pay rent and get through life during these 3 months. I also spent a hefty amount of money on transportation, since I spent nearly nearly every weekday running around Tokyo for job hunting. I was really depressed for a while and couldn't sleep well. I seriously contemplated sticking my tail between my legs and going back to Houston(in fact, my mom kept encouraging me to do just that), but I was terrified of having to return to the shitty American job market with no work experience except for a year of English teaching, plus the whole reason I wanted to come back to Japan in the first place was because I wanted to try and find a REAL job where I could use Japanese, and then use that experience to hopefully land a sweet job back in the states after a few years.
After 2 months of extremely stressful job hunting, in December I was offered a job at an international shipping and freighting company, where I've been working since January. I guess you could say I work for the Japanese version of FedEx or UPS. Basically my job is to my make sure my customer's cargo gets where it's supposed to be when it's suppposed, whether the destination be overseas or here in Japan. Although I spend a good 90% of my day sitting at my desk in front of my computer, I've developed something of a God complex recently. I mean, I can move shit...without touching it!!!!!11
Like most jobs, some things about my job suck, especially the whole being extremely busy and having to work overtime thing. However I don't think I would have EVER gotten this oppurtunity back in the states(ESPECIALLY not in H-Town). Plus I'm learning a lot and like most of my co-workers, so I think I'm gonna stick with it for a while.
So that brings me to where I am now.
I will be heading back to Houston for the first time in 2 ½ year this Saturday. But only for a week….which is hardly even long enough to get over the jet lag, but it’s probably gonna be longest vacation I’ll be able to take a while. I reeeeally wanted to go to Austin for even just a couple of days, but I don’t think I’ll have time, and I obviously don’t have my own car anymore, sooo we’ll see what happens. So if all 2 of you who still in live in Houston have some time we should hang out.
Anyways, I’m going to start actually reading LJ and try to catch up on all my friends’ lives. I’ll also do my best to try and update regularly and people posted on mine.
ANYWAYS. That’s all for now. I hope that at least most of you guys don’t hate me. Catch you on the flip side!