Let's Japan.org Debunking Eikaiwa and Ramblings in Japan

Putting Your Stick in My Honey Pot

You would think that friends would stand next to you, help you and support you in creating a new school. They would be there to help out with lessons and handing out flyers...but what the hell do you do when they start giving students lessons of a different sort...I don't wanna come off sounding like a NOVA manager or anything like that..but what would you do!?

A friend who taught in Japan for 3 years sent me some advice on things to do...and not to do should I make to move to teach in Japan. I thought Id pass her advice your way, to see what you think, and if you'd add anything.

Well here it goes this is my first ever post on Let's Japan, a friend told me about this site and it's a refreshing change from all crap out there. I used to be hooked on www.japantoday.com then realized the news was fake and message boards were full of racist bigots.

I find that most posts here on Let's Japan are very negative. I am finding that I have been driven to being negative as well. I guess one of the reasons I come to this site is to let off a bit of steam and give advice when I can. It only takes one flame to get us firing back with comments. I admit that I am most often quick to flame when I see a flame is due. Here is my positive post for today. As egotistical as it is. Flame if you have to!

Apologies for the repetitive use of 'I'.

It's a quiet Wednesday night and I've finished work early. Since my girlfriend left me, I've been in the habit of shaving twice a day. Rituals keep me anchored. I've got my Gillette Mach Synch 3 razor and my sturdy can of Schick shaving foam. I get home about five and I stand in front of the bathroom mirror scraping beard off my face until all that's left is a greyness behind the skin. As I'm shaving, I wonder why in movies no one ever finishes a shave.

Now that I am back home, I don't feel as happy as I thought I would. I thought that returning home would free me from the Eikaiwa Blues, but some lingering sadness still hangs about me. What's more, after finding out that Japan is not what it's cracked up to be, I am not completely sure if I want to continue studying Japanese. I've spent about 4 years doing it, so stopping would be a great waste.

Let me introduce myself...I'm an ex-Korea EFL teacher (the name says it all) who has been hired by on one of the big-three and I'm very excited to be going to Japan in the new year.

I spent 4 1/2 years in greater Seoul and did not run away, but left of my own chosing after completing my fourth contract.

Arriving in Japan a second time was nowhere near as good as the first. In the past I had been a fresh-faced traveller, new to the weird smells of airport toilets, the sights of beautiful women wearing Donald Duck skirts and sounds of weird high-pitched super genki songs on Japanese commercials telling me to get some germ killing product I would never need. From the look of the housewife on screen I would need to kill every insect in the universe before getting a good nights sleep but for me now those things just seemed so damn annoying.

Tokyo City, my school. A place where the sun never shines, the birds never sing, yet there's always muzak in the air. The home of my workplace for the past fourteen months, and the source of many of my trials and triumphs in Japan. As an outgoing teacher who has been working for GEOS for about a year and a half, I'd like to share some of my thoughts about working for this company. Would I recommend it to someone fresh out of university like myself? And if I fell back in time, would I do it all again, having experienced the highs and lows and knowing what I do now?

My traveling companion, Amy, and I arrived at Tokyo airport approximately one hour and fifteen minutes late. We had questioned the GEOS trainers about whether or not two hours connection time was enough to make our second flight and were told "No problem." Now 45 minutes, this is a different story. We managed to find an airport employee who could understand what we were trying to tell and her ran with us through the airport and we got to skip the line for immigration. Then we found our way down to our baggage platform only to informed that our luggage was also late.