I Have A Job!

In a very surprising turn of events, a friend of mine from ICU told me about a job position at Tokyo Woman's Christian University (東京女子大学, Toukyou Joshi Daigaku) teaching English to students there.

I went to an interview on Tuesday and they hired me! Everyone there seems really nice, and they made me feel right at home. The University itself is really nice as well, but not as nice as ICU, it has to be said!

So starting tomorrow I'll be teaching two 90 minute lessons every Friday. And it's a short contract, just until the end of their term in mid-June, which works perfectly for me, as I'll be leaving for Britain on 10th July.

I'm really surprised I found a job! I'd resigned myself to not earning any money this year. But I'm very relieved! It will really help my money situation. The pay is quite good, Y2,500 per 90 minute lesson, and I'll be teaching two classes a week, so that's £35 per week more than I would get if I didn't have a job! Plus they pay for my transport. It's in Nishi-Ogikubo (西荻窪), which is just five stops away from my station.

I spent some of this afternoon making lesson plans for tomorrow, but they warned me that as I only went on the schedule on Wednesday it might turn out that no students come. But they did add that I'd be more likely to get students than some of the other teachers from ICU because I'm "an attractive guy". I thought they were joking! But they were completely serious. Uh oh, better try to be as good looking as possible then! But I still get paid if no students turn up, as long as I wait to see if anyone comes during the whole time. So I'll take my textbooks along, and might end up being paid for studying!

I'm a bit nervous, because I've only taught one student at a time before, at Gaba and private teaching in 2008, and if a lot of students turn up then I could be in charge of a class of 10 or 15 students. Scary! Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly...

Also, as a side note, I'm really sorry about the lack of posts about China and my brother's visit recently. The reason is that my Leeds exam is in two weeks (that's the exam I have to pass to continue my degree) so I'm studying around the clock trying to do ICU work as well as cram as much vocab and grammar, and as many kanji as possible, into my brain. I promise I'll catch up after the exam is over and I can finally breathe again!