Just finished the last day of my second interview - fairly grueling, with 5-6 hr days on Friday and Saturday and outside prep time last night of well over 5 hours. It was educational. It's pretty iffy whether I'll get the job - I think there's a fifty-fifty chance. One thing in particular was a problem - during the 30 minute lesson, an interviewer said I was sighing all the time. I know I have a tendency to do that, mostly when I'm tired, but I didn't realize at all that I was doing it during the lesson. That upset me, and she wasn't gentle. That is definitely something, along with my closed body movement, that could keep me from getting a job. But I still felt I did well, and even better, it convinced me that it ispossible that I could teach, and that I enjoy it. I'm not very accustomed to that sort of work - standing in front of people, organizing my thoughts on the fly - and thus any sort of progress is a real boost to my confidence. It may be that I won't get a job this round - I hope I do, of course - but I think it is a good idea to pursue teaching, if for no other reason than to force myself to try another way of behaving.

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Here I am in Toronto. At the moment I'm sitting at an oval table in a kitchen with an old stand-alone cupboard (something in my heart tells me there is a more specific term) peeling paint and an L-shaped layout very similar to many of the kitchens I know in Lawrence. I am surrounded by two men from France, a tall Japanese man almost my age with long, curly, black hair, and a younger Irish woman who works here, all of us trying to figure out how a waiter asks a customer how they'd like their meat done (rare, well, etc.). I still think there is a more specific way to put it, but I'm always wrong, so I give up for now. Anyway, one of the French guys has moved to asking the Japanese guy about judo terminology.

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I'm in Toronto for some interviews for jobs teaching English in Japan. I got in, checked into my hostel (very nice place) wandered around a bit, and came back to find there is a Japanese guy who hangs out here. It was the first time I've spoken Japanese since I was in Tokyo, so I was a bit nervous, but he seemed to be able to make sense out of what I was saying.

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I've been hibernating. Except, unlike hibernating bears, I've been gaining weight. Ah, well. There's still hope I'll get rid of this unsightly bulge.

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I've decided to make a couple of changes so that I'll continue to write in this blog.

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