16 posts tagged “life”

It's been trapped up inside my head trying to find it's way out for such a long time, I wondered if it would ever make sense enough for me to write about it. I've been getting into the habit of keeping a journal on paper and that has helped with regularity and avoiding all kinds of self censorship. It's peculiar even when I write for myself I am held back by a sense of what might be appropriate to write, and what I should be allowed to think about something.

It really does help to get things down on paper, but for me it is it is a means to an end. The aim is to live more creatively than I have in the past. By that, I mean not just taking more photographs, or writing poetry, but through creating opportunities for myself and my family. Lately, I feel as though I've been able to do that in a way that I haven't done since I left University and started working in multimedia.

Work has been a bit tough, there have been interpersonal rivalries and some corporate casualties. I'm glad I have toughed it out however, because it has now given me the more scope to seek autonomy and creative self expression. I'm hoping that work provides a stable platform from which to move forward in my career.

The hours at my day job have been flexible enough for me to be able to take a second job two nights a week teaching English at a language school just around the corner. The second income gets taxed at the maximum rate, but it's good to know that with the support of family I am able to hold it down. That confidence in myself, and in the team at home, is going to come in handy when I decide to go back to study hopefully next year.

It could be I'm just feeling confident after reading too many self help/life hack/productivity blogs, but things are moving in the right direction.

Well part of the battle is won. I've made it home, finished my course and landed a job, all without completely depleting my savings. The hardest part is yet to come, finding an apartment. Not an easy task in Brisbane at the moment, where most people spend at least at least a 3rd of their income on rent. Buying is out of the question, housing affordability is at it lowest point in about 12 years, and there doesn't seem to be any chance of that changing soon.

I'm working, and that's the main thing. I decided on going with a full time permanent position with James Cook University Brisbane, in their Learning Support Services section as a Student Learning and Support Officer. It's not English teaching, but it does have slightly more going for it financially. I needed the stability that comes with a salaried position over the contract work that typifies the English teaching industry even here.

I'm going through the induction process today, and tomorrow I'll be in the Channel 7 studios for the recording of "How to Get That Job" with Sarina Russo. I've been told to have some questions ready just in case I get called on to participate in Q&A.

After a fruitless week of searching for work in teaching English as a second language, rather than throwing in the towel completely, I've decided to take another qualification. Despite almost 5 years experience teaching English, employers don't want to take me on with out formal recognition of my ability as a teacher.

I've been accepted in to the Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults, otherwise known as CELTA, offered at The Australian TESOL Training Centre in Brisbane. It's considered an entry qualification for teaching English professionally, and here in Australia it's very hard to find a job without it. TESOL stands for teaching English to speakers of other languages.

Australian English schools of repute are accredited by a body known as NEAS, which is itself an acronym within an acronym, The National ELT Accreditation Scheme, ELT meaning English Language Teaching. If I can just get my head around the acronyms then I might have a chance of understanding the course.

By all accounts the four week full time intensive course is very hard work, there won't be time for much else except study and teaching preparation. The course starts Saturday week and finishes the first Friday of April. There should be enough time after that to find a job and an apartment before June when C and the kids come over.

This is the beginning of a big year, after the train wreck of last year, time to count my blessings:

• the love and support of my family here in Japan and in Australia.
• a beautiful wife that has expresses her commitment to our relationship with devotion.
• a sensitive and crazy smart boy about to turn ten who wants to spend more time with his dad.
• an inquisitive boy with boundless energy who just turned two.
• a baby girl born on christmas day.

That feels better.

I almost wrote flying back home, but then checked myself. I have called Japan home for close to five years, it's not going to be easy to leave. I'm glad I have stuck firm to my conviction to put a cap on my time here.

It does mean however that my little Japanese family, which is just about to include another, will have to leave the comfort of their familial home. It's going to be more difficult for them than it is for me.

Of course things have become more urgent with the job situation over here, it's bad for us financially but a good opportunity to make a break. We still have a lot of red tape to get through, to make sure that Chie gets her Australian Visa, and the new baby her(?) passport and certificate of citizenship.

I've got to get cracking on a new career as soon as my Japanese test is out of the way next Sunday. Min and Nettie were talking me around to considering teaching as a career, when they were here last week. I am starting to see the sense in a job for life. Job security was something I was looking for when I came to Japan, and something that I still desire.

In the short term, I will need to find a job that will give me some flexibility to do some study for my Diploma of Education, while providing me with the income to feed my family. I will probably have to do some training or retraining as soon as I step of the plane. Out of the pot and into the proverbial fire.

We've just spent the morning at a friends place digging for sweet potatoes. Toshihiro and Mieko have just come back from a week in Australia where they saw Sydney harbour and Uluru (Google Image Search), the red rock in the centre of the desert. They were away for roughly the same period of time my family was over here to visit. It has been a very full couple of weeks.

Toshihiro and Mieko fell in love with Australia the first time they went, just over a year ago. I know they are looking forward to the chance to visit again one day. Hopefully I'll be able to share with them a little bit of true blue Australian hospitality and have them stay at my place.

To tell you the truth, the last couple of weeks has brought back a flood of sensations and memories related to Australia that make it hard at times not to feel sentimental. The red scorched earth in Toshihiro's photos, the deep blue Pacific Ocean, the casual yet inquisitive nature of my Australian family, are all bringing things home to me.

It has a taken me a while to sort through the photos taken on the trip, and it will probably be a few more days until I am ready to post anything about it. My aunt Nettie said it best, when she said, it was so much better to do an overseas adventure with family.

I have put most of the photos up on my flickr account, and there are still more to come. Here is a just a brief teaser.

 

It feels good to be sitting infront of a terminal again, I haven't been able to post anything too long via my cell phone. We've been out reach also for the last day and a half. Yesterday we were at Koyasan, the centre of Shingon Buddhism in Japan and one of the largest cemetaries I've ever seen. We stayed at a Buddhist temple and had dinner with the monks, we also joined a prayer service in the morning, very early in the morning.

Mick and Min were exhausted last night after lugging their suitcases across Osaka and through the subways of Kyoto, so they crashed at about half past eight. They elected not to send their bags on via delivery, I think only now are they realising the benefits of packing light. I can't complain though, I know most of what they have in their suitcases are gifts for my family in Matsusaka. 

Nettie and I wen't for a walk last night around Gion, we saw many typical kyoto Street scenes. We saw, kimono clad girls bidding their customers farewell at the door of high class restaurants. There were people out and about, Nettie kept saying it's hard to believe we are here. I need to keep reminding myself that everything my guests see here is highly exotic, even if it has become everyday for me.

I'm probably going to be in for a bit of reverse culture shock when I get home. I can't spend too long typing, there is someone waiting for this terminal, so here are some photos.

This is a video I put together at the beginning of last month, about the working conditions we all had to endure as Nova began it's death throes. It was recently picked up by Let's Japan, a site where I spent a lot of time over the last couple of months trying to make sense of all the chaos.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one to vlog about Nova as it went down the toilet. A couple of months ago I subscribed to a guy called Trevor who was doing much the same thing as I was, vlogging about life and work in Japan. One of his most recent videos, also featured on Let's Japan, shows the obvious distress at being forced out onto the street in a strange land.

Mark is another guy who came to Japan, full of hope and enthusiasm, just a couple of months ago. In a video series called Mark goes to Japan, his enthusiasm soon turns to confusion and anger. Mark was the target of a lot of misdirected criticism, some of it hurtful, due in part to his perceived naivety. The very last video on his vlog, he seems to be in denial of the situation unfolding around him.

It is hard to watch these videos, and I cringe every time I see my own, but I think they need to be seen. The situation with Nova is far from over. For some people their difficulties are only just beginning.

I am sure there are many other vloggers out there, sharing their stories despite their hardships. I am encouraged by their efforts to present my story as honestly as possible. Is there something that you have seen recently that makes you think about blogging both the rough and the smooth?

As far as eikaiwa schools go, NOVA was one of the biggest, in 2003 it had captured over 66% of the market share in Japan and was voraciously clawing it's way in to uncharted territory. Expanding beyond it's much touted school in front of the station model, it opened in shopping centres and strip malls hoping to become the McDonald's of English. When I moved to Japan in 2003 I was part of that expansion, and in 2004 I had taken a position as a titled instructor in a rural branch.

When I moved into that role, there were 7 full time teachers and 2 part timers, working in a branch of around 230 students. On Saturdays we filled 5 rooms, sometimes with the full complement of 4 students in each room. Nowadays I am lucky to see a single lesson with 4 students. Most days I teach 3 or 4 students and a handful of kids. There are 5 instructors including myself, and when one of them leaves in 2 weeks for a big city job at a different eikaiwa, we won't be getting a replacement. There are half the number of students there used to be.

There has been a lot said about the financial demise of NOVA over the last couple of months, and it could be said that their trouble started a long time ago. What ever the reason, it has come to a crunch in the most predictable, yet heinous way. Thousands of students are demanding refunds, many are lodging formal complaints and the lawsuits are piling up in the courts. Staff haven't been paid, instructors are miserable if they are turning up to work at all, many  more are leaving daily. NOVA is defaulting on loans, struggling to pay rent on schools and even the apartments it leases on behalf of instructors. Many instructors face the threat of eviction.

Schools are closing at an alarming rate and instructors are being forced to transfer, many are not showing up for work at their new posts, afraid that their travel expenses may not be reimbursed. Despite this turmoil, new instructors are being shipped over to Japan, unaware of the deep financial crisis they may be about to step into.

Last month my pay was delayed by 2 weeks, this month I doubt it will come on pay day as promised, if it at all. I am still turning up to work, under the advice of the General Union, and I am encouraged by my family to hang in there. I have no faith left in the company, because the president abused my trust by stringing me along on a trail of empty promises. I feel a sense of responsibility towards my students and my co-workers, we all accept that the end is near, and we are all working hard to enjoy the last few days of our professional relationships together.

I don't feel hopeless, just betrayed, by a man who would put his greedy pride before the welfare of 7000 employees, some of them who are just days into their first experience of this beautiful country.  I am disgusted that he would leave 400,000 students in the lurch, with worthless points to be reclaimed at a school that is sinking further into the mire with every minute.

Where are you Sahashi? What do you have in store for us? Are you brave enough to admit defeat, or will you string us along again with your vapid prose and empty promises?

You can follow the unfolding drama on my tumblr, or my jaiku.