Career guidance
September 21, 2006 at 8:00 pm | In Career | Leave a Comment
I called the career guidance office of my university. I talked with Wendy who gave me some good advice on how to spruce up my resume and target my job search. I told her of my goal of getting to Japan by September of 2007. Several posts on this site have been of great use to me. Most people are saying to not rule out English teaching in Japan. I will continue to exhaust all options, including English teaching for a while. Has anyone had the experience of going to Japan with an American company or other foreign company? If so, I would really like to hear your story!
Falling behind
September 21, 2006 at 7:54 pm | In Education | Leave a CommentClass is getting difficult this term. I am realizing more and more how tough the teacher is for absences and tardies. Since I missed last weeks class, it appears that I won’t be able to make up the assignments. This week is our first test which I don’t know what to expect. I’ll hope for the best and study like crazy for the next 4-5 hours.
Links
September 14, 2006 at 1:26 am | In Career | Leave a CommentI am working on a webpage with links to career postings in Japan. It’s slowly coming along, I’ll update everyone on the progress. It will eventually be posted on www.innerglobal.com
Weekend Trip
September 8, 2006 at 11:20 pm | In Trips | Leave a CommentLast weekend I went to Descanso Gardens in Los Angeles. Descanso was open to the public in the 1950’s after the owner of the 100+ acre property sold it to the county of Los Angeles for a rediculously small amount of money. It is a beautiful garden full of amazing flora. Recommended seeing during this time of year is the international rose garden. All the buds are in bloom and they smell incredible. Did you know the rose smell is supposed to energize you. Well I certainly felt invigorated after traversiing through the garden. Also of note, this garden has a small Japanese garden….although nothing comparable to the Japanese garden in Portland, Oregon it was peaceful.
3rd Japanese class of the term
September 8, 2006 at 11:06 pm | In Education | Leave a CommentThere is much to be said about the difference people have noticed in my Japanese skill within the past 3 weeks (since school started again). Not only have I refreshed my skills in hiragana and katakana but I am finally starting to learn Kanji. Kanji is based off the traditional chinese writing system. It is very artful in its design and character creation.
The class began with an engineer who went to Japan recently for work showing his experience on a slide show. Most of the time during his trip he was drunk, so we were really seeing him extremely inebriated and partying with his friends rather than the culture of Japan. I wonder how many people in the class who have not been to Japan have a distorted drunken perspective of Japan. The remaining pictures in his slideshow were of toilets, signs and landmarks (Tokyo Tower, etc.)
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The class has now gone through over 30 verbs and sentence construction is finally looking feasible. By the end of the class my brain was hurting…..too much information for one day. Tonight, with the information still fresh in my mind I will review what I learned.
Customer Service
September 8, 2006 at 1:19 am | In Food for Thought, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Customer service in the U.S. has become a bad….naughty word. Most people have at least one horror story locked in their memory. Traditionally, customer service was about servicing the customer….”customer is always correct” attitude. Today, you have to fight your way like crazy to get even a shred of credibility with the operators. Many mistakes over billing for cellphones, cable television, and credit cards remain unresolved because the company is more focused on their bottom line than attracting and keeping new customers for a long term business relationship. It’s all about the immediate sale. Continue reading Customer Service…
Motivation
September 8, 2006 at 12:51 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Working for someone else has its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, one advantage may be job security and a mostly guaranteed paycheck every pay period. The downside is that there is plenty of politics involved. The company I work for now does logistics analysis and acquisitions. It is common to see people trying to inch their way to the top by stepping on the little guy, or more realistically smothering them. Yesterday was one of those days that seriously motivated me on my way to getting a job in Japan. Continue reading Motivation…
Checking out other Japanese blogs
September 6, 2006 at 3:37 am | In Career | 2 CommentsIt would have never dawned on me to check other blogs of expatriates living in Japan until now…duh. I found so many of these blogs most of them dedicated to the intricate details of their life in Tokyo or teaching English and drinking/partying during their off times. While this is all great information for its entertainment value, it doesn’t serve the purpose I am after. I couldn’t find any blogs that were dedicated to finding work or describing the job search or work life of a foreigner in Japan……at least not in significant detail.
I am finding more and more people saying that the best and most popular route to Japan is by teaching English. Had I just graduated from college, that may sound appealing, but I have been out in the work field for the past 8 years. Sadly enough the jobs that I had then and now have not brought passion to my life. The jobs are a mode of one thing that is endearing to me….a source of which to live. But to it I am a slave even though I may deny this verbally. Every piece of my life is dependent on this job. For such an independent person as I am, this rips at the fiber of my being.
2nd Japanese class of the term
September 1, 2006 at 4:56 pm | In Education | Leave a CommentI am continually impressed with the quality of the education at my school. This class just gets better and better. My instructor speaks in Japanese for most of the class usually practicing simple sentences that most students can interpret. There was a quiz during class about 10 questions long. I missed two of the questions….what is doctor and bank in hiragana. But I was surprised I knew the other questions. For the first time we created a sentence. Mary san wa dissatan de cohi o nimasu. I feel that the Japanese language (nihon-go) is getting easier now that I know hiragana and katakana along with verbs and particles.
It appears that every week we will have a quiz. Today I will study some of the material for next weeks quiz along with the standard homework.
Business Trip and Job Possibilities
September 1, 2006 at 12:02 am | In Career, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Career thoughts this week will be brief. I took a business trip to Colorado Springs for a few days. It is amazing how fast the weather changes there. Driving up Pikes Peak (a 14,000 ft mountain) was enthralling. The road is a mixture of asphalt and dirt without guard rails. Even though the weather was pleasant going up, when I reached the top it completely changed. As if I wasn’t supposed to be up there, a storm rolled in on que and it started hailing and lightning filled the sky. Although somewhat concerned, I was excited to see such magnificence in motion. Continue reading Business Trip and Job Possibilities…
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