See everyone on the other side!

Related posts

• Life Tip – Plan Ahead (0)
• Changing Life Gears (0)
• Cape Cod - Province Town (6)

I will present both the positive and negative. Ask questions! I tend to gloss over some details while going too far into others.

Another thing I get asked about a lot, and people who want to teach in Japan need to know, is about your living space. This would otherwise be known as “The Apartment.”

It could probably be regarded as a common fact that the average Japanese apartment is smaller than the average American apartment. The lesser known extension of this fact is that the average apartment for a teacher is smaller than the average American closet.

Ok, it is not quite not that bad… but it is very different from what most people are used to. Instead of going into great detail, I’ll throw out some pictures first.

This served as my bedroom, office, living room, and cooking prep room (not that I cooked much). The shot is from the door to my deck where I dried laundry and had breakfast when the weather was good.

This is the kitchen, it was also the only sink I had. Just to the left of that was my clothes washer, it really isn’t worth a separate picture though.

Yeah, it was small. Very very small. When first coming to my apartment my manager was actually worried I might not fit on the bed. Luckily the bed was not a problem, it was small, but it was adequate for sleeping. I can say truthfully that I almost had a panic attack upon first seeing my apartment. I can also confirm that you get mostly used to it very quickly.

It’s not all bad though, having a tiny place encourages you to get out and see things. Also, Japanese culture is largely based around the fact that you don’t host any activities at your apartment, you tend to take people out. This is a big reason why karaoke clubs with private rooms are such a big thing.

I don’t have much to say on the apartment topic. It was small, but it served as it needed to.

Related posts

• Teaching Japan: Why Did I Go? (2)
• Teaching Japan: Where Did I Go? (2)
• Teaching Japan: Being Gaijin (0)

In the last two years I have moved to Japan and back to Colorado, then to Boston, and now I will be going back to Colorado.  With all this moving, one would assume that I am a moving pro.  In some ways I am.  I travel light compared to most people I know, and I’m really good at putting things into boxes.  On the flipside, I am terrible at planning ahead for these moves and doing thins like selling furniture.  I don’t wait until the last minute, but I am not ahead of the curve.

It would also help if Uncle Chris believed in moving trucks… Unfortunately I come from the school of thought that says selling of everything you own is more profitable than hiring people to move it.  While true, it comes with more heartburn.

So here it is, a great “Do what I say, not as I do” tip.  Making a schedule for when you need to sell things, have certain things packed, and when you actually plan on leaving are good important things to mark down.  I technically still have two weeks to do things like that, but working at the same time makes it harder.

If you do decide to move without doing much planning, plan on never buying a decent chest of drawers for your clothes.  By doing this you can live “out of a suitcase” like Uncle Chris has the last year.  I actually didn’t mean to live out of my suitcase, but not remembering one of the items on my list at IKEA resulted in being left with a closet and suitcase for wardrobe organization.  If nothing else it provides for great stories you can use in conversation.

Yeah, this is a short tip, but I really ought to pack things before getting kicked out of my humble abode.

Related posts

• Tuning Out For a Bit (0)
• Writing Again (0)
• Welcome to Training! (0)

Being that I recently posted the Worker’s Plea that pointed out some problems many wage slaves have with employers, it would only be fair to point out that we can be better workers as well.  These points apply to workers at every level from executive and janitor.

Thus, here is a list of 10 things you can do to be a better worker.  Some are common sense, which may or may not be your forte.  However, some do require us to develop our office skills.  From my experience I can attest that all of these are not only important, but they work!

So, lets look at the easiest things to do:

• Smile
• Be Calm

They are made of one syllable words and should be just about as easy to accomplish as they are to say, but most people fail at these two simple things.  If you work in an office where everyone scowls at everyone else, it feels hostile and you really don’t feel like doing anything.  Smiling people make us feel better, emotions are literally contagious.  So if you work in an office of curmudgeons be the first to break the mold and smile, who knows someone might actually appreciate it.  Next, be calm, sure you have a manager screaming at you, but screaming back will not help.  Ever try screaming at a baby to stop it crying?  Yeah, I bet that worked out just great too.  So take a step back, take a breath, and be the person to help diffuse the problem rather than escalate it.  Everyone in the office will remember you as that person who did not crack under pressure.

Next steps:

• Know the problem
• Ask Questions
• Accept Change

These three things are not hard to accomplish, but we tend to forget them while running through our workday.  Speaking of that, how many times have you been given a task without really knowing what you were supposed to do?  Yeah, probably more than any of us want to admit.  Always ask questions before you start a task, make sure that when you start working the problem you’re working on and what your boss wants are actually the same thing.  It will save you lots of time, headaches, and make being calm and smiling much easier.

Change happens.  Most change even happens for a reason.  Unless you can be absolutely sure the change being implemented will hurt workflow try and get on the wagon.  Arguing about the change and refusing to work with it wastes much more time than seeing if the new way/software/boss might actually be better.

Now the hard ones:

• Do one thing at a time
• Learn to listen
• Distinguish sense from nonsense
• Admit mistakes
• Say it simple

Multi-tasking has become the order of the day.  If you do a decent search on research into multi-tasking you should come to the fast conclusion that it fails to produce anything more than stress and less productivity.  If you have a task, get it done and don’t let yourself wander between five other things. 

Listen.  Listen listen listen.  The main reason we don’t ‘know the problem’ and ‘need to ask questions’ is because we forget to listen.  Make sure to listen carefully, take notes if you need them, and spend less time planning how you will respond before someone is done talking.  This will ensure once you ask questions you will be getting extra (read helpful) information and not getting information repeated.  This is actually the only way to distinguish sense from nonsense.  Once you learn to listen carefully everything else gets much easier.

Admit mistakes.  Nothing much to say on this.  We all hate to do it, and we all need to do it more.

Don’t complicate things.  If you need to give a project to someone or report the status of something, say it in a way anyone could understand the first time.  The big reason we need to listen so carefully is because most people are terrible at speaking.  Make your points in a way a 5 year old can understand.  Don’t talk down to people, but don’t needlessly complicate.  This needs an example:

Bad:

Boss: I need you to, by no later than 5, get these several documents collated checked, and have 5 of them over to Jim who will be forwarding them to several of our clients.

Workers: !! … Yeah, sounds great, by 5, got it.

Good:

Boss: Please make 5 copies of these documents and get them over to Jim by 5.

Worker: Does anything need to be reordered before I make these copies?

Boss: Nope, these should be in the right order.

Worker: Great, it will be done in 10 minutes

Short declarative sentences win the day!

So, practice these 10 points at work.  You might actually be amazed at how much better things can go for you.

Related posts

• Wednesday Image: Savage Chickens (4)
• The Worker’s Plea (8)
• Wednesday Image: Zombies Are Hot (2)

I will present both the positive and negative. Ask questions! I tend to gloss over some details while going too far into others.

I almost forgot the question that always comes after “Where were you in Japan?” and that is “Why did you pick Nagoya?“

Most people assume that I had some specific reason for going to Nagoya. I didn’t, and here is how I got to that city in particular:

Interviewer: Do you have a specific city you want to teach in? We can try, but it might delay our ability to place you or offer you a job.

Me: No, I don’t have a specific place I want to go.

Interviewer: Do you want to live in an Urban, Suburban, or Rural area?

Me: Suburban or Urban would be my choice.

Interviewer: Do you want to teach adults or children?

Me: Adults, kids scare me.

With those questions answered I ended up being offered the job in Nagoya. There was an opening, it matched my preferences, and bang, there I was.

If I had been given a list of cities and wiki entries about them, I actually may have picked Nagoya on its own merit. It has a good urban area, but the bulk of the city is “suburban.” I put that in quotes only because that has a very different meaning in Japan than in the United States.

You say suburban in the US and it means endless cookie cutter homes and a grocery store somewhere within a 10 minute drive. In Japan that means a fair density of apartments with a good deal of small commercial and industrial thrown in. If you need something the odds of it being within easy walking distance are quite high. I loved that about Rokuban-cho, the area my apartment was in. I had everything needed to survive in a 5 block radius, and most of the minor luxuries within 10 blocks. And if it wasn’t within walking distance I lived across the alley from the subway station.

No, I’m not kidding… Across the alley from the subway. I had a total walking time from door to subway of maybe two minutes. The walkways to the actual subway platform were a bit long.

It doesn’t hurt that the area I worked in was awesome. there was a Starbucks on the corner, an Outback Steakhouse downstairs from the Starbucks, and a CoCo Ichibanya across the street (there was also one 3-5 blocks from my apartment). There were also enough bars to make a night of “let’s hit every bar on this street!” into less of a cry for help and more into an actual suicide by alcohol poisoning. You could avoid killing yourself by stopping for a few songs at the ubiquitous karaoke joints between most of the bars.

If you’re not in to drinking, then you should check out my post The Beauty of Shirotori Garden. That is another reason Nagoya is a great place, it has some fantastic gardens and a number of excellent parks.

So I didn’t pick Nagoya, but I was always happy with the place AEON placed me.

Related posts

• On to Work! (1)
• Teaching Japan: Where Did I Go? (2)
• How to Teach English part 2 (3)

So, this is tip is “Just Do Stuff.”  That sounds kind of vague…  What I really mean is, go out and do things.

Hmmm… Still not very precisely put.

Life is not built for the living room of your home or apartment.  Sure you can see things on the web and the TV is great, but the things that you really remember and things most likely to make you happy are outside your door.  This is especially important if you’re going through a hard time, depression, or really anything that is uncomfortable and isn’t highly contagious – that’s right plague carriers, your fulfilling life activities are indeed in your own home.

I tend to be the kind of person who likes to retreat into my cave.  You can imagine that this was/is an important lesson for me.  Getting up and going out has always been a good idea for me.  You can have a goal, or just wander about for a couple of hours.  But Uncle Chris would never be so cold as to leave you without example of how going out and doing things is a good idea.

For one thing, you get great chances to take pictures of yourself in reflective objects.  Because really, nothing is sexier than capturing a picture of yourself pondering the picture you are about to take of yourself in a view screen.

Or better yet, you get the chance to take an artistic photo that people like while wandering around and checking out cherry blossoms near where you live.  The particular shot above was at a very small temple that was a 5-10 minute walk from my apartment in Japan.

I got both those pictures by following good advice to get up, get out, and live my life. 

Related posts

• Life Tips from Uncle Chris (4)
• Life Tip – Remember Stuff (4)
• Life Tip – Plan Ahead (0)

Some things defy reason.  This is one of those things.

Maybe 3M privacy screens aren’t hardcore enough for you.  Maybe you have a MacBook Air to hide from me.  Or you have decided to use the excess heat from your laptop as a new way to heat your head. 

No matter what your reason is I can assure you that a weird knot sock/hat thing is not the answer.

Related posts

• Wednesday Image: Zombies Are Hot (2)
• Wednesday Image: The Optimist Watch (0)
• Wednesday Image: Some Are Better (0)

I will present both the positive and negative. Ask questions! I tend to gloss over some details while going too far into others.

When you tell people “I taught English in Japan,” they tend to make certain assumptions. Like the assumption that you actually are a teacher or went to school for education.

Well I can testify that not I nor a single person I taught with at my school had planned on going into education when we received our college degrees. Personally I have a degree in Psychology and a minor in Philosophy. I’m great at generating random bullshit for hours on end with little to no prompting. However, I was not a teacher, which any teacher can tell you, is a much different set of skills.

The general requirements for teaching in Japan are as follows: a college degree, 12 years of education in English, and a passport or ability to get a passport. Yep, that’s it. What they are looking for is not some specific background, what they look for is the right kind of personality. If you’re nice, energetic, and adaptable you can teach abroad.

So yes, I was a teacher, and no, I am not a teacher.

Related posts

• Teaching Japan: Why Nagoya? (2)
• Teaching Japan: Why Did I Go? (2)
• Teaching Japan: Where Did I Go? (2)

If you know me, you know I’m not a big fan of Apple.  The reasons go from “Apple != Games” to the fact that they enjoy trying to foist software on you through iTunes updates.  However, I do think the MacBook Pro and related products are pretty solid.  Another however… I despise the MacBook Air.

More than that, I despise vanity electronics.

By that, I don’t mean MP3 players, Portable media devices (although those get rather close to my list), and things that generally serve a purpose.  What I hate are electronics that forcefully degrade usability and utility to “be cool.”  If you need attention so much that you buy mostly useless hunks of plastic to drag around I recommend hookers, they have more features, are cheaper than, and some even look better on your arm than the Air.

Related posts

• You Must Prepare (0)
• You Are ALL Geeks (0)
• Why The Sims is Evil (8)

Memory is a tricky thing.  For most people, it seems like the harder they try to remember, the more forgetting they do.  But I have developed a personal system that works pretty well.  I don’t have photographic memory (although this can also be trained in most people), and I do my own share of forgetting, but hopefully these words of wisdom from Uncle Chris will help.

You know how some of the best ideas come while your in the shower?  I think this is because you reach a decently Zen-like state while focusing on cleaning and not focusing much on trying to think.  Cultivate that state of mind.  “Shower Mind” sounds odd, but it would be a mostly accurate description of what you want.  However, this is only step one!

Think random thoughts.  Don’t try to organize your thinking so much.  I think highly ordered or focused thinking tends to kill both creativity and memory.  This does not mean that you should aspire to be that ADD kid everyone hates.  But let your mind wander.  I know a whole lot of things and can recall much of it very quickly because most of the things I have learned are connected to lots of other random other thoughts and bits of knowledge.

So how does this work in practice?

If I need to remember something at the store I try to attach it to a fact (it can be true or not, memory is the key here, not winning on Jeopardy) .  You need bread, well lots of soldiers ate bread, and I happen to like the history of WWII, so when I think about the Medal of Honor game series and the fact that shooting Nazis is the most popular basis of all FPS games I remember I need to pick up bread (and hand grenades, they really never give you enough of those).

This can even help you pass tests.  After all, Jess who sits two rows down has great tits, you know like Anne Heche, and that woman has some serious identity issues just like the ones mentioned in chapter two of… Hey look!  Test answer!

If you have any other tips for improving memory that don’t involve deluxe free pills from my spam filter, let’s hear them!

Related posts

• Life Tips from Uncle Chris (4)
• Life Tip – Plan Ahead (0)
• Life Tip – Just Do Stuff (7)