'THINKING OF TEACHING IN JAPAN? DON'T BOTHER' (Amen!)

[momotobananaoishii]

This is not something you should talk about. If immigration finds out (either Canadian or Japanese) you won't be reaping any benefits in either country.

I think you guys misunderstood. My marriage is as real as it gets. All I said was I got married to my friend (who is my best friend which is what a wife should be IMHO) and now I am reaping the benefits such as immigration and employment. Those are perks when any two people from different countries get married. The children also get two automatic passports too. Pretty sweet.

[canman]

I don't want to rain on your parade momotobananaoishii, but I don't think things are as easy as you think they are going to be. Yes you will have some advantages, but there are drawbacks as well. Can I ask you a question, how old are you? Not that age has anything to do with it, you may be a very mature young person, or a very young mature person.
From reading your posts though you seem to be only starting out in life, with a great deal of enthusiasm and high hopes, but life is rarely as we hope or plan it to be.
God I think I'm starting to sound like my father. I guess that is what happen's after becoming 40.

[momotobananaoishii]

Hi. Well I never said easy yo. In fact things are totemo chousen teki na. But I love to be in those kind of situations and that's why things SEEM easy to me. I eliminate negativity and stress. If I encounter it I erase it from my mind. I'm not young. I'm just not jaded. I'm not implying that you are jaded either

Fact is, because I am married I have a choice of many part time jobs until I graduate. I knew that I didn't want to come here while having teaching as my only employment option. That's one of the reasons why I chose to wait to get married. I think that was a realistic approach and a smart decision for me (not others).

I don't know about the employment prospects in Kanto but Kansai looks very good and a lot of companies do not require degrees which is great because I haven't graduated yet. There are even cool jobs like extras for casting agencies and other niche jobs that you simply cannot get with a teaching visa. Many of the kindergarten jobs don't require degrees as well. A lot of the ads specify higher hourly rates with degrees and lower rates without. Looks good to me. I start teaching Pilates today at my friend's studio. I studied the Pilates no yougo last week and apparently my Japanese was good enough to start teaching. It's arubaito but fun.

My plan was never to come here and teach for 10 years. My plan was/is to become pera pera and learn the culture, explore Asia, marry a Japanese girl which I did , finish my degree while working, have cute 1/2 Japanese kids and own a foreign company in Japan. I'm accomplishing that.

[Veneratio]

[Mulboyne]

The JET scheme isn't a bad programme. There are people with bad experiences but you would expect that given the number of people who have particpated over the years. Japan presents a different kind of environment than most college graduates will have encountered and the scheme offers a secure way to see the country. I recommend it.

The chief "problem", if you can call it that, is what happens afterwards. For some, the JET experience steers them towards further English language teaching in Japan and a strange kind of inertia means that they spend a number of enjoyable but unconstructive years not developing any worthwhile skills, lasting relationships or even real fluency in Japanese. There are many decent language teachers on this board but I think that they would agree the job isn't for everyone.

Others realize that teaching isn't their goal in life but can't shake the feeling that they ought to make their Japan experience the focal point of what they do next. This can mean looking only for jobs to use any Japanese language skills acquired or joining a Japanese company. When you graduate from college, there are a lot of roads to take. Going to Japan ought to increase your options but, for some people, it seems to result in a kind of tunnel vision which drastically narrows down those options.

Don't get me wrong, there are many ex-JETs who have stayed heavily involved with Japan and gone on to wonderful things in their lives but you should make that choice with your eyes wide open rather than just fall into it because you can or out of some sense that you have started something that you ought to see through.

So, the scheme is worth trying to get into but tell your sister not to lose sight of longer term plans.

[Taro Toporific]

... My sister is about to receive a B.S. in molecular biology or similar major. She asked if I thought this was a bad idea and since I have no real clue I thought I'd ask you guys: http://www.chicago.us.emb-japan.go.jp/JIC/jet.html
......

Nooooooooo! She MUST take her MCAT exams for med school first.
Her MCAT scores will drop wildly if she spends a year or more in Japan as performing gaijin monkey for JET, vegging out and speaking low-level engrish. If she has super grades in molecular biology and good MCAT scores, she should be able to get into med school after a one year break in Japan. After two year long break in Japan working in such an unrelated field as JET, many {most?} US med schools will ignore her application.

A far wiser choice after she obtains good MCAT scores, would be teach engrish at a Japanese med program for 6 to 9 months and then hurry back to med school before her "sell-before" date is past. Don't ask for where/what engrish schools have ties with Japanese medical programs. Those are prime jobs here in an otherwise mostly fraudulent industry.

Has she checked with her university advisers about the best strategy for taking a longish break before going to med school? She really must do that first and not be wasting her time with Japan forums.

Rather ruin her life fucking around with the fucking-useless-waste-of-my-taxes JET program, it would be more effective and educational for her just to borrow $10,000 from grandma and study a traditional Japanese art here as an independent student for only 6 to 9 months. She would learn more about life and Japanese on her own rather than being sucking on the JET teat---and, without destroying such a promising professional life awaiting her.

[Catoneinutica]

Nooooooooo! She MUST take her MCAT exams for med school first.
Her MCAT scores will drop wildly if she spends a year or more in Japan as performing gaijin monkey for JET, vegging out and speaking low-level engrish. If she has super grades in molecular biology and good MCAT scores, she should be able to get into med school after a one year break in Japan. After two year long break in Japan working in such an unrelated field as JET, many {most?} US med schools will ignore her application.

A far wiser choice after she obtains good MCAT scores, would be teach engrish at a Japanese med program for 6 to 9 months and then hurry back to med school before her "sell-before" date is past. Don't ask for where/what engrish schools have ties with Japanese medical programs. Those are prime jobs here in an otherwise mostly fraudulent industry.

Has she checked with her university advisers about the best strategy for taking a longish break before going to med school? She really must do that first and not be wasting her time with Japan forums.

Rather ruin her life fucking around with the fucking-useless-waste-of-my-taxes JET program, it would be more effective and educational for her just to borrow $10,000 from grandma and study a traditional Japanese art here as an independent student for only 6 to 9 months. She would learn more about life and Japanese on her own rather than being sucking on the JET teat---and, without destroying such a promising professional life awaiting her.

Truer words have never been spoken. Listen to your Uncle Taro, young FG. MCAT first, then Japan! And don't expect much from on-the-job experience working with Japanese medical school students. You'll edit some abstracts, be astonished at how my doctors can contribute to one insignificant case report, and be vexed and perplexed by weird conflations of current medical jargon - "meta analysis," for example - with archaic, Victorian-era syntax written to please a superannuated professor.

-catone
-Overt Neural Atrophy and Gaijin Life in Japan: A Case for a Correlation

[Samurai_Jerk]

Nooooooooo! She MUST take her MCAT exams for med school first.
Her MCAT scores will drop wildly if she spends a year or more in Japan as performing gaijin monkey for JET, vegging out and speaking low-level engrish. If she has super grades in molecular biology and good MCAT scores, she should be able to get into med school after a one year break in Japan. After two year long break in Japan working in such an unrelated field as JET, many {most?} US med schools will ignore her application.

A far wiser choice after she obtains good MCAT scores, would be teach engrish at a Japanese med program for 6 to 9 months and then hurry back to med school before her "sell-before" date is past. Don't ask for where/what engrish schools have ties with Japanese medical programs. Those are prime jobs here in an otherwise mostly fraudulent industry.

Has she checked with her university advisers about the best strategy for taking a longish break before going to med school? She really must do that first and not be wasting her time with Japan forums.

Rather ruin her life fucking around with the fucking-useless-waste-of-my-taxes JET program, it would be more effective and educational for her just to borrow $10,000 from grandma and study a traditional Japanese art here as an independent student for only 6 to 9 months. She would learn more about life and Japanese on her own rather than being sucking on the JET teat---and, without destroying such a promising professional life awaiting her.

I'll have to support of Taro's advice too. I was a fairly bright guy before JET.

[Veneratio]

Fortunately for her she already has her MCATs done. I think she studied 4-8 hours a day for nearly a year and a half for them. Her school life has not been anywhere near easy (school work, regular work to pay for school, studying for the MCAT, and to top it off a brain tumor that needed a couple surgeries all to keep her busy). I think she's tired of the all encompassing grind and wants a break before she goes back to it, though that is just an older brother's point of view.

I'm going to copy your posts into an email now so that she will have fodder to digest before making any decisions. I can not thank you guys enough for taking the time to help my sister.

[CountyLaw]

You're right. It doesn't make sense, but it's the truth. During my interview at NOVA, I thought my Japanese speaking ability would be a plus but she actually told me that NOVA preferred that the teachers DIDN'T speak Japanese.

But the, a lot of what the Japanese do is backwards sometimes.

the japanese are not backwards - they just are very conforming people as a society. i suppose that could be seen as "backwards" although this would probably be the worst word to use.

They think foreingers look cute and nice etc etc - they are very very basic/simple people - oh that bag is cute i'll buy this bag - no reasoning like - oh
maybe I won't buy this bag because theres no reason. That probably didn't make alot of sense but I hope you can understand what I mean lol

they think stupid is cute so as long as you dont speak japanese your safe. many of the more intellectual japanese - which I assure there are many of - although they think that being to clever is arrogant so it is now "cool" in japan to be clever but kinda act stupid or at least hide your intelligence. Aaaanyways - a foreigner is not a person basically. we are like a cartoon or something. you know- not real - we dont have feeling etc - outside of the japanese style anyway - we are objects they wish to extract the english langauge/have sex with (fine by me haha)/or marry and have a cute half-jap cild with. usually - nothing more. well that was rambling i guess but it just annoys me when foreigners get all angry - its just a fact they dont really care about you or me - just that we are foreign! im lucky that I have met a japanese woman who doesn't care about japanese conformity etc and actually cares about me as a human being like westeners do! Although many westerners dont either lol - its funny that foreigners cry about japanese people when we are much worse at home!!

[CountyLaw]

and i didn't mean to shout out at you in particular lol sorry

just I guess it frustrates me in japan - like it would in any other country - its actually really easy to live in japan - i find it to be a very lazy country in fact! i was much more of an active person in the UK - in japan I sit on my ass too much haha. I guess thats becuase different work enviroment etc etc but i meant like fitness and boshizzle. did you ever see that scrubs ep with the whole boshizzle my nizzle thing - yeah well i thought it was good lol

anyway - erm - if anyone lives in osaka and wants to go for a beer sometime with a guy who up for anything (except gay sex) holla me - or whatever j-z says *confused*

oh and ps. WHY do foreigners ignore each other in the street etc? i always nod or smile at you and you fucking pretend like you dont wanna talk to me! jesus Im a nice guy alright! im not a perv or a nutcase i just wanna speak to someone in ENglish not engrish!! wow - now that probabaly made me seem like a nutcase hahaha

[Greji]

WHY do foreigners ignore each other in the street etc? i always nod or smile at you and you fucking pretend like you dont wanna talk to me! jesus Im a nice guy alright! im not a perv or a nutcase

I alway do that as well, but in my case I am a perv and a nutcase

[gkanai]

oh and ps. WHY do foreigners ignore each other in the street etc? i always nod or smile at you and you fucking pretend like you dont wanna talk to me! jesus Im a nice guy alright! im not a perv or a nutcase i just wanna speak to someone in ENglish not engrish!! wow - now that probabaly made me seem like a nutcase hahaha

I'm from NYC. People who smile at you in NYC get mugged and worse.

[Iraira]

anyway - erm - if anyone lives in osaka and wants to go for a beer sometime with a guy who up for anything (except gay sex)

oh and ps. WHY do foreigners ignore each other in the street etc? i always nod or smile at you and you fucking pretend like you dont wanna talk to me! jesus Im a nice guy alright! im not a perv or a nutcase i just wanna speak to someone in English not engrish!! wow - now that probabaly made me seem like a nutcase hahaha

1. There are several affirmed goat fetish fiends on here, can we assume that you're up for that, provided that the goat is female?
2. Why foreigners ignore each other: It's called "Gaijin Complex", and basically it is the overwhelming desire to be the only gaijin in that particular train car, thereby basically reserving the "Oh, look a jingai!" statements just for yourself. The gaijin who nod back at you with a "Wuddup?" nod, those poor folks know...they know and they can't escape from it.

Time to take my pills...

[maninjapan]

`holla me - or whatever j-z says *confused*

that just put me off thinking about maybe emailing. That's why people ignore YOU

[ttjereth]

oh and ps. WHY do foreigners ignore each other in the street etc? i always nod or smile at you and you fucking pretend like you dont wanna talk to me! jesus Im a nice guy alright! im not a perv or a nutcase i just wanna speak to someone in ENglish not engrish!! wow - now that probabaly made me seem like a nutcase hahaha

Because I feel no kinship to someone simply because they hail from the same landmass/have the same skin color as me.

I'm misanthropic anyway, but I've never really understood the need of some foreigners to go out of their way to acknowledge other foreigners in public. If a Japanese I didn't know nodded or waved at my, or god forbid struck up a conversation I'd probably ignore them too

[Iraira]

If a Japanese I didn't know nodded or waved at my, or god forbid struck up a conversation I'd probably ignore them too

Now if she was wearing a very tight mini, had reasonable teeth, etc, you'd ignore her? Heathen!

[Samurai_Jerk]

and i didn't mean to shout out at you in particular lol sorry

just I guess it frustrates me in japan - like it would in any other country - its actually really easy to live in japan - i find it to be a very lazy country in fact! i was much more of an active person in the UK - in japan I sit on my ass too much haha. I guess thats becuase different work enviroment etc etc but i meant like fitness and boshizzle. did you ever see that scrubs ep with the whole boshizzle my nizzle thing - yeah well i thought it was good lol

anyway - erm - if anyone lives in osaka and wants to go for a beer sometime with a guy who up for anything (except gay sex) holla me - or whatever j-z says *confused*

oh and ps. WHY do foreigners ignore each other in the street etc? i always nod or smile at you and you fucking pretend like you dont wanna talk to me! jesus Im a nice guy alright! im not a perv or a nutcase i just wanna speak to someone in ENglish not engrish!! wow - now that probabaly made me seem like a nutcase hahaha

If you think and talk anything like you write, I wouldn't be able to handle more than two minutes hanging out with you.

[ttjereth]

Now if she was wearing a very tight mini, had reasonable teeth, etc, you'd ignore her? Heathen!

Depends on if my wife was there or not

Honestly though, I'd be more inclined to give someone I found attractive the time of day, but I'd still be a bit suspicious about their motives. Especially a Japanese girl trying to pick up a stranger on the street/train/etc. The only girls I've run into who try that are the "any gaijin okay" type, which I don't tend to like anyway

[Greji]

The only girls I've run into who try that are the "any gaijin okay" type, which I don't tend to like anyway

I will send you my keitai number to pass on, to help you get rid of these nasty women! 24 hour skang removal service available.

[CountyLaw]

you name says it really doesn't it?

[CountyLaw]

and no I don't talk anything like I type!

the NYC comment is true lol - guess I overlooked that. well - i guess there are just alot of prats in japan

[CountyLaw]

[CountyLaw]

eeeeeeerm yes! i do have goat fetish the last one I was dating left me because I tried to milk it...

nasty!

[ttjereth]

I will send you my keitai number to pass on, to help you get rid of these nasty women! 24 hour skang removal service available.

There are lots of them out in the boondocks... My buddy had filipina pub girls flashing their tits at him on the train (there were only 4 of them and him on the train), there was the crazy (albeit not bad looking) old bat who was an officer of one of the city-organized but indepent groups (Internation association and such) who despite being in her 40's with a daughter in high school constantly dressed in these ridiculous tight leather outfits and hit on all the gaijin (all 4 of us...) who worked in the town, then there was the time I got nanpa'ed by high school students on train, or got inappropriate suggestions from jr. high school girls when I was giving a presentation at the local jr. high, another friend got hit on by a girl who HAS JUST HIT HIM WITH HER CAR, etc. etc.

There are tons of girls with the gaijin fever out in the boonies of northern kanto. I've never been interested in being with someone who was only interested in me because I was gaijin, haven't generally ever been that desperate for female companionship during my time here, so most times it tends to just be annoying.

[ttjereth]

eeeeeeerm yes! i do have goat fetish the last one I was dating left me because I tried to milk it...

nasty!

The qoute button lets people know what message you are replying to.

[CountyLaw]

i clicked it but i guess it didn't put me through:mad:

stop picking on the new guy

anyways has anyone got any advice for a lonely private teacher?

any good books for recommendation?

[Samurai_Jerk]

There are lots of them out in the boondocks... My buddy had filipina pub girls flashing their tits at him on the train (there were only 4 of them and him on the train), there was the crazy (albeit not bad looking) old bat who was an officer of one of the city-organized but indepent groups (Internation association and such) who despite being in her 40's with a daughter in high school constantly dressed in these ridiculous tight leather outfits and hit on all the gaijin (all 4 of us...) who worked in the town, then there was the time I got nanpa'ed by high school students on train, or got inappropriate suggestions from jr. high school girls when I was giving a presentation at the local jr. high, another friend got hit on by a girl who HAS JUST HIT HIM WITH HER CAR, etc. etc.

There are tons of girls with the gaijin fever out in the boonies of northern kanto. I've never been interested in being with someone who was only interested in me because I was gaijin, haven't generally ever been that desperate for female companionship during my time here, so most times it tends to just be annoying.

Are you sure you're heterosexual?

[Samurai_Jerk]

and no I don't talk anything like I type!

OMG. LOL. I don't come across too many adult British men who write like American junior high school girls leaving comments on YouTube.

[Greji]

Are you sure you're heterosexual?

Ya, if you don't count goats!