Entries this day: AM Dale_Carnegie Work zzz

AM

10:28am JST Wednesday 18 February 2004

Slept a lot last night. Slept 2 hours and woke up. Dan was still awake so we watched Family Guy and he went out and bought me some Pocari Sweat and some salt for gargling purposes. I gave him 1000 yen for his efforts (and to pay for the goods).

Slept slept slept slept with two heaters and two blankets and I'm feeling nominally better this morning, but not 100% genki.

Okay go go go.

11:55am JST Wednesday 18 February 2004

My dream from this morning included being a youth advisor again, but this time with new youth; apparently going *back* to YRUU after a lapse of some duration (which needn't be very long in YRUU).

The youth were standing in a grid formation with about a meter between them side to side and front to back. A woman advisor was telling them what she wanted to do and got little or no response. I was like, "how are you guys? Are you excited? Are you bored?" and one guy raised his hand as/before I was saying "who has an idea of what to do? Chris!! what's your idea?"

And I just straightup knew his name somehow and his idea did not include the idea the other advisor had suggested, and I was like, "excellent idea! how can you get that started?"

It was all quite natural and happy and things just flowed well. Awesome.

Dale Carnegie

12:01pm JST Wednesday 18 February 2004

Some time ago (10 years?) I read most of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. Here's a cool thing about Gaba; they gave us each a copy of the book on our second day of training. The title of this book I thought weird, but the book is money.

Today I read chapter one on the train, and I had a vision in my mind of giving a copy to Steve at Nova who more often criticizes than praises. Then I read the quote attributed to Ben Franklin "I will speak ill of no man ... and speak all the good I know of everybody."

Four stars. Plus a 2x4 to my brain: I have spoken a lot of ill of Steve. I acknowledge that it may not have been in the best interest of all involved.

Another four stars on the facing page: "To show you I'm sure that you'll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow."

Thanks, Dale.

11:58pm JST Wednesday 18 February 2004

On the train home tonight, a man who spoke pretty good if accented English asked me where I had purchased my copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. He was reading a Japanese version of a different Dale Carnegie book, the name of which I seem to have forgotten.

I gave him a map to Gaba's office as a place he could find out where they bought the books.

Work

12:23am JST Thursday 19 February 2004

Work today was pretty good. I had my first two Gaba clients (clients, not students) and both lessons went well. I talked to a cat named Alex who has worked for Gaba for four months and is already helping train new teachers. That says something about the growth of the company.

I got confirmation that I'll be working at the Jiyogaoka office, although I still am not sure how to spell that name.

Said bye to Miranda, who reminded me of Laura Douglas, and reminded Keddins of Drew Barrymore, (and me too after he mentioned it) which may explain why I had a bit of a crush on her. I wonder if/when I'll see her again.

Okay, bedtime for real.

zzz

12:21am JST Thursday 19 February 2004

Good night. Just watched a couple episodes of The Family Guy after watching a couple of issues of Ali G, with whom I wasn't really impressed except that he did some things that I wouldn't do.