Entries this day: Dream Job_search zzzz

Dream

8:56am JST Tuesday 11 January 2011 (day 14902)

Coming back from a bit of a a shopping trip after moving in to a new location, and coming back to a class of about 70 youth whose names I didn't really know, but was learning, I was asked to go in and tell them class would be delayed about 20 minutes.

I came in from the back of the room, which they reacted a bit like, "woah" and I aid in my best radio announcer voice, "this lesson brought to you by Tipness and Piereniss, and will begin in twenty minutes" and I gave a deep bow and they all laughed a bit and understood and then I was sitting on the floor a bit outside their group and one girl asked, "why are you here teaching and in the other class [as a student]?" and I thought that was a really good question, so I went dramatically shuffling to the from of the class, noticed some slippers the same as mine but smaller, and said, "good question." "The question was, why am I here, and also up there," and they agreed it was a good question, and I answered, "I've been here before, teaching this class about four or five times, but the class upstairs is new to many, so I'm taking it to see how it's taught."

They were satisfied with the answer, and I noticed someone was playing the piano really dramatically loud in the back of the room, I thought his name was Mike but I found out it was Frank, and I hollered "FRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANKK!!!" as loudly as I could and he stopped playing, and I go, would you like to rejoin us" and immediately realized I should have said, "your piano playing is amazing" first, but I said it second "I can tell you'll be able to make a lot of money at that in the future, if you want to" and he kinda went aw man and I addressed the group, "I hear that from a lot of people like, "aw man I don't need money; I ain't worried about making money," and then said in my best reference to someone, "you will, young one, you will."

Then I aw Peggy and them ready to teach the class, and they came in from the back as well, and I go, "and now it's balloon day!!!" and yayyyyy!! and woke up.

Job search

Good morning, Rainer!

I hope you enjoyed a pleasant weekend.

> My name is Rainer Morita, providing executive and engineer matchmaking as
> well as career coaching services.

Great to meet you!   I'm Rob Nugen, masseur, programmer, artist, teacher.

> In order to help you effectively, I would like to know more about your
> situation. I kindly ask you to briefly answer the following questions:
>
> What is the goal of your job search?

I would like to stay in Tokyo, and have enough money to get an
apartment with my future wife Lin, raise two (future) kids and put
them in International school.

I have been looking for web / database programming work; my goal for a
job has been to find a position doing web/database development in a
language I know (PHP, Python, Perl, C/C++, SAS, MySQL) or even better,
a language I don't yet know (Ruby, Java, Oracle, Sybase, etc) on a
unix system in an environment of people who know how to program.  I'm
open to a management position, but should probably start small because
I don't have any professional management experience.  I'm definitely
open to learning management skills.

> For how long have you been searching for a job so far and what are your
> biggest challenges for finding what you really want?

Biggest challenge seems to be that I don't have experience in the
banking/financial industry, or that I don't have enough Japanese
language skills.  Others are that I haven't had really long term IT
employment in Japan.  One company went out of business while I was
working for them, and the other two were contract positions.  Rakuten
said that by my age (41), they would want me to have management
experience.

> Have you been considering new career directions and possibilities which are
> different from what you did in the past?

Yes.

I finished my most recent IT contract in early 2010 (with sbstrm),
then went to Thailand for 3 months to study Thai massage, hoping to be
able to start a business related to massage.  I have a lot of
experience and great feedback from giving massages, but I didn't have
a certification recognized by a government.  I still don't have that
certification, so I've been hesitant to really advertise myself as a
masseur.  I'm trained in reiki as well, but again no certification.

My friends and I have thought that the idea of private house-call
massage in English would be great.  There's plenty of money with
people who work from home or who take care of the home, and I'm trying
through word-of-mouth to get into that market.

My housemate Soness has the brilliant idea of starting a business that
combines IT and massage.   I'm working on getting that started as
well.

We are also looking at teaching workshops for internet related
business, starting in early February.

> How satisfied are you with the service of other recruiting agencies?

Well, I haven't gotten much response from them.  Usually I get at most
a single suggested company when I sign up with the recruiting agency,
and then "okay we'll keep you in mind" after that, but no real
response.

> How satisfied are you with the progress of your job search?

I'm optimistic that I will find the right position / business if I
keep putting effort toward these different paths.

> Thank you for your cooperation. I will be in contact with you shortly.

Thanks for that.  I really appreciate you asking useful questions, and
I look forward to working with you.  Upon successful placement, I look
forward to taking Paola, Jon, Lin, you and a friend all out to dinner!

   cheers!!
   - Rob

zzzz

4:59am JST Wednesday 12 January 2011 (day 14903)

Our internet connection went out here. The worst part about it: I could have fixed it had I checked the cables. But htf did a cable come disconnected when no one touched the actual modem or wireless router? I called the company to no avail, and then took a nap. Yuji fixed it by checking the cables when he got home. (I had just pulled and replaced the power cables, not the data cables. damn.)