With eight private students now, I’ve also been busy tutoring—yesterday I worked twelve hours in total (three lessons in addition to my regular shift at work). I’ve concluded that teaching English conversation is like working at a hostess club and sometimes, the students' intentions are two-fold—to learn English and date a foreigner. Especially in my own business ventures, I’ve discovered that I attract male students who are all at least five years older than me and am recently pondering one thing—is this some kind of dating service? That’s sure not what I signed up for! Don’t get me wrong, I do have a handful of clients who are studious—focussed on learning English and all that jazz—but the majority seem wrapped up in taking me out for dinner while we chat. They call this a “lesson.” Even when I mention my boyfriend again and again, they don’t seem to care! I've even had one student ask me when I plan on getting married and this makes me wonder what his true intentions are, or were, from the beginning. Haha. It's quite entertaining.
The whole private tutoring situation reminds me of a hostess club—where men go to chat with women, fork over a lot of money, and are basically made to feel like they are kings of the world. Most of the time, I feel like I'm doing essentially the same thing, sans the alcohol. Even at our company, I have the same sentiments. I have private lessons with many business men who like to chat about useless things and don't like to accept corrections. At one of my schools, a co-worker of mine teaches a private lesson to a head honcho of a really big business. He told the staff he strictly wants female teachers and he always showers her with gifts. Most, if not all of these men are married, but just like to flirt and feel special. This whole outlook ties into the patriarchal nature of the country and sometimes makes me want to scream. Unfortunately, it’s just the way things are here and I guess I can’t complain about getting free dinners!
Scott and I also went out with Laura, Colin, Marcus and some other people from work last night. It is Australia Day today and for a premature celebration, Marcus (who is Australian) and Scott went to a bar and even ate barbequed kangaroo (which was excellent, according to Scott).
Last Sunday, Scott and I decided to sleep in (since it’s a rare occurrence these days). We woke up around 11 and headed to Umeda to go to Joyopolis (a three-storey arcade) and see the Umeda Sky Building’s Floating Garden Observatory. I never realized how addictive arcade games can be—especially when they involve winning prizes. At Joyopolis, Scott and I became borderline obsessed with trying to win a stuffed toy from what the Japanese call “crane games.”After observing several people and taking note of their technique, Scott tried to win several things (including candy and stuffed toys) and about 2000 yen later, he finally won a stuffed Snoopy.
The arcades here are also full of picture booths and they’re so popular here—especially with the ladies. These picture booths aren’t your everyday booths where you sit down, have your pictures taken, and walk away with four photos—they’re so much more. Basically, they’re a way for people to take glamour shots of themselves. They have nearly blinding white lights and also a feature where you can add things such as hearts, stars, borders, writing, etc. What’s more...you can enhance yourself by adding hair and even changing the colour of it. Crazy! Naturally, I wanted to test it out and we had a lot of fun messing around.
The Sky Building is a pretty acclaimed landmark in Osaka and its architecture is world renowned. It’s not only the seventh tallest building in the city, but also connects two towers in mid-air by escalators. I have to say, it’s probably one of the most interesting buildings I’ve been in and it was spectacular to get a view of the city on such a clear evening.
Work is going really well for both of us. Scott has been doing some overtime shifts to save money for our upcoming trip to Thailand. We still haven’t figured out the details (including booking a hotel), but I know our spontaneous approach will make things all the more interesting.
We also discovered an incredibly cheap bowling alley right near our house and had a bowling date on Friday night while the staff at the alley mocked our hideous technique. Good news, though...I beat Scott!
It’s really noisy in the city today because it’s election day for the new prime minister. I haven’t really been following along with this (partly because I hate politics and don’t understand anything anyway). All I know is that they need to invent a new way of campaigning. As I’m typing, I can hear loudspeakers in the distance. Garbage trucks aren’t the only vehicles that sing and make an over-excessive noise here—it’s common for politicians to parade through the streets (as well as quiet neighbourhoods like ours) and yell through loudspeakers and wake people up. If this happened in Canada, they sure wouldn’t get my vote! I’ll be glad when the election is over and I can sleep in again!
We’re going to have a relaxing Sunday today and not do too much. Recently, Scott and I have discovered the show, “Weeds” and how great it is, so we’re going to have a “Weeds” marathon. We hope you’re all enjoying your weekends and Happy Birthday to Lynn Ann!
Well, see ya later!
Jo & Scott
xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment