11-03

11-03 10:03 am – I’ve Been Here How Long?

I’m having trouble deciding if I’ve been here a week. On the one hand, I left on a Wednesday…and I’m stupid. It’s Thursday. I’ve been here a week. Lot’s gone on in this week. Including the arrival day, I’ve had just as many days of work as days off. I’ve still got 4 more days of work before my weekend. Actually, you know what? Just for the record, here’s my schedule, in case you wanna call me, or something:
Monday – Off
Tuesday – Off
Wednesday – 5pm 9pm (PST – 12am-4am)
Thursday – 1:20pm 9pm (PST – 8:20pm-4am)
Friday – 3:10pm 7:20pm (PST – 10:10pm-2:20am)
Saturday – 10:50am 6:10pm (PST – 5:50pm-1:10am)
Sunday – 10:50am 6:10pm (PST - 5:50pm-1:10am)

OK. Enough of that, I need to start getting ready for the day.


11:40am – Timing

The timing’s still off on this. I tried yesterday, to little avail, to take my time getting ready and heading out there, so I didn’t have an entire hour to spare like I did the day before. Today, to my surprise, I’ve managed to get ready entirely too early once again. I’ll get this figured out soon enough.
I have to teach four lessons today. Ash made the comparison between my training and slowly boiling a frog in water. You don’t really realize how far deep you’re in to it until it’s far, far too late to look back or catch your bearings. I’m not worried about it though, you just have to roll with it and learn as you go. I’m gonna prep my second lesson right now, then head out with Ash.

11:55pm – On Probation

Well, it’s official. I’m on probation. Now, normally I would think of that as a bad thing, I’ve never been on probation in my life, but, for now, it’ll do. It’s actually a good thing for once. It means that I successfully completed my OJT, and starting Saturday I’ll be on my own essentially. I get the benefit of tomorrow off, as opposed to starting right up at 5 or so and having 4 lessons straight away. But it also means that on Saturday I will have a full day of 8 lessons to start up on.
Tomorrow I will still head over to Moraju Kashiwa, or, as it’s properly named, Mollage Kashiwa, to scope the place out and get used to how to get there. Mallage. Mall-age. Lol. I will be getting used to buses too, cause I have to catch one to get to my work every day. Yeeeeefreakinhaw.
Today wasn’t so bad at all. I had a group of 4 level 4’s to start, one of whom was a challenge from level 5 who I observed my first day in training. Then I had 3 level 6’s, one of whom was a no-show. Back to back wasn’t really so bad, but I imagine with less prep and support it might get hectic.
The second grouping was 4 level 7A’s, followed by a one on one level 5. Both sets went pretty well, actually, and I was able to achieve most of my goals for my lessons. I kept the enthusiasm level up the whole time, and in every lesson laughter was an integral part of the experience. My last lesson, the one on one, was about bargaining, and she drove one hell of a bargain. I think we spent about half the lesson laughing about it. I didn’t really realize that she was a low level 5 until I read the review of my lesson, after which I realized that was a pretty good explanation for her lack of comprehension in certain areas. Duh. I was too busy enjoying myself to notice.
By and large today went well, though I found myself a lot of the time outside of lessons kinda spacing out and not being able to focus. I think it was because of being in high stress mode, and being in the mindset to act quickly and think about lots of things at once. When presented with a slow, or singular stream of information, I tend to lose focus, which I certainly did. But, as Alex put it, we made this week easy for him, so it couldn’t have been all bad.
I think he and I both know I’ll do well out there. I’m not worried about my ability, and I don’t think they are either. I just don’t want to be cocky about it at all, I know I’m due for a humbling pretty soon. But, all in all, I’m really excited about this. And I can’t wait for Greg to get back, so I can share my experiences with him. He’ll get back on my days off, how convenient. 便利　べんり、benri, convenient. As opposed to 不便、ふべん、fuben, inconvenient.