Specialist in International Humanities
According to my visa I am a Specialist in International Humanities, according to my Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate, I am qualified to Teach English to Speakers of Other Languages, but by all practical measures my only necessary skillset to do the job I’m doing, is to make sure as hell I was born and raised somewhere where they spoke English. So being born in the USA is essentially what qualifies and entitles me to the position I hold here.
My first week of “work” as we shall refer to it, started with a class of three ten year olds. We started by passing a plush, oversized strawberry around the room and saying every food we could think of, which the overweight kid is really good at. He comes up with gems like avocado, calzone, and fried chicken. We then passed the strawberry around and counted to 30 or 40. After that it was time to learn. So we played leapfrog, we were reviewing prepositions, so after they leaped one another I asked them who was in front of them, and who was behind them. Then we played twister, after each contortion I would ask them which foot was next to them, who was under them, who was on top, etc…Then we did a few minutes of work in their book, and class was over. Man I wish I was still sitting in a cubicle.
After that it was off to the infamous banker’s office. I feel like I’m starting to collect my own Seinfeldian characters at this point. Though I don’t have a “man-hands” yet I think we can now appropriately refer to this character as “grab-hands” or GH. So I went to GH’s office, due to the fact that he’s exceptionally busy, even though it’s slated to be a two hour lesson, it will often run only 45 minutes or so, and will often be interrupted to some phone call or other. The class itself consists of me waiting in a small waiting room, walking into his office, drinking tea and eating little sandwiches, and talking to him until he gets tired of me and tells me to leave. I brought pictures of the house, the family, (he knows where you live) and of places I’ve traveled. And oddly enough before he kicked me out he gave ME homework. He gave me a small book of Who’s Who in Japanese history, which, I have to say, is perfect for me because it’s exactly what I was looking for to get a little perspective on the culture.
Now to the important part of our meeting, the exit, that small corridor between the office and the elevator which separates the men from the boys. Ingeniously I wore a backpack to this meeting, and as we walked out of GH’s office he had his hand on my shoulder again, and I think it moved a little bit down the bag, but then I think he was frustrated with no clear way to surreptitiously slide down to the naughty place. So, on the one hand I’ve found an easy way of triumphing over this assiduous awkwardness, but on the other hand I feel a little sorry for the guy. I mean this guy probably knows almost everyone there is to know in Japanese high society, he bought one girl a bike, he hooked one teacher up with some gig in Tokyo just by picking up the phone, so in the long run, if letting GH cop a feel every once and a while is what it takes to ensure stellar connections, maybe it’s worth it to go a little above and beyond the call of duty. I can pretend I just hit a triple or something and the third base coach does the olde ass-pat. I mean for some reason its ok in baseball, why not in international banking and language coaching.
You see how I’m torn.
So after that class I went to the “Rune Rune Club” to teach some more businessmen. Now this is a really difficult assignment too. I have to show up, and talk, and subsequently listen to them talk, for an entire hour. Seriously, this is my job. So this one gentlemen owns a Sake Brewery, that’s right, he brews Sake, and then travels all over the world to secure exporting deals for it. The other guy in the class wasn’t there, but I’m sure he owns something valuable and useful as well. So we talked about his travels, my travels, and I actually learned a great deal about the Japanese political scene because I brought in an article from BBC.com. There are essentially two Kennedy families in Japan, a conservative one and a liberal one, and they’ve both pretty much established dynasties on the main parties and the Prime Minister’s office since the second world war. Hooray for democracy on the march. Day 1 is over. I’m a teacher, it’s a damn tough job but somebody has to travel around the world talking to people.
Wheat Out
My first week of “work” as we shall refer to it, started with a class of three ten year olds. We started by passing a plush, oversized strawberry around the room and saying every food we could think of, which the overweight kid is really good at. He comes up with gems like avocado, calzone, and fried chicken. We then passed the strawberry around and counted to 30 or 40. After that it was time to learn. So we played leapfrog, we were reviewing prepositions, so after they leaped one another I asked them who was in front of them, and who was behind them. Then we played twister, after each contortion I would ask them which foot was next to them, who was under them, who was on top, etc…Then we did a few minutes of work in their book, and class was over. Man I wish I was still sitting in a cubicle.
After that it was off to the infamous banker’s office. I feel like I’m starting to collect my own Seinfeldian characters at this point. Though I don’t have a “man-hands” yet I think we can now appropriately refer to this character as “grab-hands” or GH. So I went to GH’s office, due to the fact that he’s exceptionally busy, even though it’s slated to be a two hour lesson, it will often run only 45 minutes or so, and will often be interrupted to some phone call or other. The class itself consists of me waiting in a small waiting room, walking into his office, drinking tea and eating little sandwiches, and talking to him until he gets tired of me and tells me to leave. I brought pictures of the house, the family, (he knows where you live) and of places I’ve traveled. And oddly enough before he kicked me out he gave ME homework. He gave me a small book of Who’s Who in Japanese history, which, I have to say, is perfect for me because it’s exactly what I was looking for to get a little perspective on the culture.
Now to the important part of our meeting, the exit, that small corridor between the office and the elevator which separates the men from the boys. Ingeniously I wore a backpack to this meeting, and as we walked out of GH’s office he had his hand on my shoulder again, and I think it moved a little bit down the bag, but then I think he was frustrated with no clear way to surreptitiously slide down to the naughty place. So, on the one hand I’ve found an easy way of triumphing over this assiduous awkwardness, but on the other hand I feel a little sorry for the guy. I mean this guy probably knows almost everyone there is to know in Japanese high society, he bought one girl a bike, he hooked one teacher up with some gig in Tokyo just by picking up the phone, so in the long run, if letting GH cop a feel every once and a while is what it takes to ensure stellar connections, maybe it’s worth it to go a little above and beyond the call of duty. I can pretend I just hit a triple or something and the third base coach does the olde ass-pat. I mean for some reason its ok in baseball, why not in international banking and language coaching.
You see how I’m torn.
So after that class I went to the “Rune Rune Club” to teach some more businessmen. Now this is a really difficult assignment too. I have to show up, and talk, and subsequently listen to them talk, for an entire hour. Seriously, this is my job. So this one gentlemen owns a Sake Brewery, that’s right, he brews Sake, and then travels all over the world to secure exporting deals for it. The other guy in the class wasn’t there, but I’m sure he owns something valuable and useful as well. So we talked about his travels, my travels, and I actually learned a great deal about the Japanese political scene because I brought in an article from BBC.com. There are essentially two Kennedy families in Japan, a conservative one and a liberal one, and they’ve both pretty much established dynasties on the main parties and the Prime Minister’s office since the second world war. Hooray for democracy on the march. Day 1 is over. I’m a teacher, it’s a damn tough job but somebody has to travel around the world talking to people.
Wheat Out
posted by Just1Wheat at
9:58 PM
