As many of you know, I'm looking for a job. And, to be honest, I want employment more than I want just about anything except of course, let's be honest, a woman and a panda bear. On Wednesday I trucked ¥510 away on the subway to interview with a company called ALTIA Central. I would put the link for their website up here but it's kind of dumb. ALTIA-san and I talked for about two hours, subjects ranging from religion to ESL in Japan to my computer. It was wonderful. I really enjoyed the conversation and really jived with what I understood the goals of the company to be. So that was great. Anyway, even though I might not be hired by them as they are lacking in space for new employees in September, they e-mailed me requesting a slew of things including a couple of photos. This is one of the photos that I took but didn’t send. I just think it looks good next to "I want a woman and panda bear."
Today, at the end of our kids class, I walked past Dan giving out snacks to the boys he was teaching and heard: “And Yuto doesn’t get a snack because he hit me in the nose.”
Dan and I also been teaching at the Elementary School that’s pretty close to the church. I’ll save you the dumb ALT stories about being treated like a celebrity and how great that is, but bring you these three gems: 1) During lunch with the students today, I had to eat some liver that was just horrible so I was trying to give it to the kids, but no one would take it. One of our kids from one of the church classes was there so I asked her to help me out. She gave it to this fat kid she was sitting next to. You rule, Ayamei. 2) After lunch, the polite whispering and giggling about our accents and general largeness gave way to about five or six kids standing around us just touching our hair and laughing. One of the kids was comparing me to a monkey or the way that Dan and I eat to the way that monkeys eat, I think. 3) Dan and I went to the Tea ceremony club afterwards and we had to sit on our knees for like a half-hour. When it came time for me to stand up, I seriously couldn’t feel my feet. It was just like I had dead weights attached to my legs. I got about half-way down the stairs and had to stop because I was about to fall down. Unfortunately, the principal was right behind us so I looked like an idiot. Tea ceremony club was fun, don’t get me wrong, but dang. Get me a chair or something.
Also, I had my first Japanese birthday party. My Tuesday night students are great. We ate cake with chopsticks and they sang me Happi Birusudae. It ruled. They rule. Most of them are doctors too.
David Bazan sings about going to heaven in the live version of "Slow and Steady Wins the Race" from the Summer tour: "And I'll receive a mansion/ Right next to Mel Gibson"