Got Through It All

While wearing feminine, yet conservatively tailored suits with jackets that pretty much covered my ass, I survived my two days conducting "Intro to doing business in Japan" workshops. Now I can stop driving everyone in my immediate vicinity as crazy as I was driving them and go back to just the regular, daily level of crazy driving-ness. I really had myself worked into a frenzy, but I think it was a necessary frenzy. Ever since I moved back here from Japan almost three years ago, I had this idea in my mind that I could market myself as a Japan specialist and use the knowledge and insight gained by spending a dozen years of my life in that country to help local businesses improve their odds of succeeding when doing business with companies in Japan. It kind of makes sense, but it's a big leap to go from minnow nibbling on the fringes of academia to cross-cultural consultant who can walk into a room full of international executives, have them recognize my expertise and authority on the subject and hold their interest and attention for hours while I help them learn what they need to know. It always sounded like a wicked cool idea, but now I can say I actually have done it and, judging from the feedback, done a decent job of it.
Getting the material together was not really a big problem because all that involved was sitting my ass down with all my reference materials, my mental stores of accumulated experiences over more than a decade in Japan and then set to boiling it all down into some sort of logical pattern of organization. What to wear was not as much of a problem as I thought it would be. I went out and bought some suits on sale (yeah! for shopping in January) and some nice pumps and stockings to wear with them and I was good to go for a few hundred dollars, which is a reasonable investment for the future and not more than a third of my fee anyway. What had me so worked up was whether or not I would be able to deliver the goods in the allotted amount of time, or more specifically, what they hell would I do if I ran out of material?
The first day I finished what I had planned to go over with 45 minutes still left to fill. I went ahead and started introducing some of the material I had planned to use on the second day. After the first session I went home and beefed up my Powerpoint presentation with more information regarding specifics that had been brought up during the first day. I figured out where the team would be staying when they visit Japan next month and where they needed to go and included info about transportation options. I learned that correspondence was an issue that had already come up and included some tips on how to make that aspect of communication clearer and how to avoid misunderstandings. I shared a lot of relevant anecdotes about real-life experiences-- my own, those of my friends and those I've read about. I went for four hours straight that second day without a break Several of the participants had to leave for other meetings during my workshop, but they all came back, which I think means they felt what I was doing was worth their time. It also meant I never found a good time to call for a break because it was just as one participant had to leave that another would come back.
It started to feel easier the second day. It started to feel more like one of my classes, but possibly even more laid back in a way because I was dealing with other adults and not with young adults who I sometimes feel I should shield from certain observations in order to be politically correct in a university environment. I think I could do this again and do it even better next time. And it won't have anything to do with my physical assets, which it never really did in the first place. I just enjoy having a sense of humor about that kind of thing.

Got Through It

I survived the first afternoon of being a corporate trainer and will go back and do it again today. I guess it didn't totally suck then. Actually, it went pretty well. There were five people in attendance and at the end of the afternoon they told me that the information I provided was valuable to them. I think one or two of the guys didn't particularly like what I had to say about the way things get done in Japan and the way communication takes place, but at least now they have a little insight into how their counterparts in Japan might look at things.
I ran out of material before I ran out of time, so I dipped into some of the material I was planning to go over in today's workshop. Yesterday was more of a macro view about Japanese cultural norms, attitudes and approaches. Today we will be getting into the details of protocol and etiquette. We'll do a little bit of lanugage training for grettings, the infamous business card exchange, go over dining etiquette, drinking etiquette, getting from point A to point B and other fun stuff like that. I'm a little worried I may not have another 4 full hours of information for them, but today I will speak more slowly and see if I can get some of the guys who have been to Japan before to share more of their experiences. I should also throw together a quick feedback questionairre to see if they have any suggestions on how to improve my product/schtick.

Evaluations

It's snowing again today, but the local school system didn't cancel or delay the school day, so I dropped the girl off and came to my school. I picked up my mail and found the evaluations from last semester. I must have fed them a love drug or something before they wrote those things. I'm like Sally Field-- "They like me! They really like me!"
Someone in the elementary class wrote せんせいはしりがすきです(sensei ha shiri ga suki desu), which translates to "Teacher likes butts." (yes, as in behinds, booty, ass, what have you.) I'm not sure if they are implying that I have some sort of butt fetish or if they're trying to make a comment that they like mine. If it is the latter, it proves me right. I've said for years that one of my main motivations for dieting or staying in shape is because when I'm up writing on the board I don't want people looking and thinking, "Man, she has a big ass." I don't necessarily want them thinking "Oh, she has a nice ass" either. Really, they shouldn't be paying attention to my ass in the first place, but since most of them are in late adolescence, their minds may wander that way.
I have to go teach my first, independent, corporate workshop today. I hope the whole enthusiasm + ass concept works as well on them as it does on the college students. (sarcasm, people, it's sarcasm.)

How To Break an Egg aka One of These Things Is Not Like the Others

A friend of mine who teaches at a women's college in Japan had given his students the standard assignment to prepare and give a presentation using Powerpoint describing a process-- a "how to" asssignment. One particular young lass gave her presentation on "How to make an omelet". She must have done what any typical student would do, type 卵 (tamago, egg) into Google image search and pulled the image of the carton of eggs off the first line of results. Apparently, she wasn't looking closely at what she copied and pasted into her presentation.
You can go ahead and do the same search she must have. She used the third result from the left. (possibly nsfw)

How to Make Homework Fun

The midterm assignment for my paralegal course on the thrilling topic of probate is to draft a simple will for a fictional individual with a family. The teacher named this person Joe and told us simple details about Joe's family. Joe was not holding my interest, so I decided to rename him Homer and wrote a simple will for Homer Simpson. Thanks to Wikipedia I was able to draft a will with the correct names and spellings of Homer's friends and family. So in his will, Homer leaves his Iron Maiden album collection to Bart, or in the case of Bart predeceasing Homer, to Ned Flanders. (Just to piss him off.) He is leaving his collection of books on Eastern philosphy to Lisa, or if she's no longer around, to Apu.
I found it much more interesting once I knew who I was writing it for. I hope the teacher has a sense of humor.

An MTV Countdown Provoked Thought

Nickelback is the Journey of the new millenium.
Treakley, yet annoyingly catchy "rock"anthems? check
Lead singer with bad haircut that makes my skin crawl? check
Makes me want to simultaneously puke and gouge my eyes out? check
Can sing along to most of their radio hits? (unfortunately) check

Say It Like You Meme It

I've seen this meme going around (kinda like a flu) and finally decided to take it from Shannon, evn though he tagged no one.

"Four Jobs You’ve Had In Your Life:

1. Junior high school "correspondent" for the local paper (my first-ever paycheck)
2. bus girl at Rye on The Rocks
3. Assistant English Teacher at junior high schools in Amagasaki, Japan
4. Instructor of Japanese at the college level

Four Movies You Could Watch Over And Over:

1. The Fifth Element
2. Ran
3. The Breakfast Club
4. Wizard of Oz

Four Places You’ve Lived:

1. Portsmouth, NH
2. Boulder, CO
3. Honolulu, HI
4. Kanazawa, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan

Four TV Shows You Love To Watch:

1. Boston Legal
2. American Idol (yes, I'm a big dork)
3. The Simpsons
4. Nanny 911

Four Places You’ve Been On Vacation:

1. Koh Samui, Thailand
2. Waterville Valley, NH
3. San Francisco
4. Holland

Four Blogs You Visit Daily:

1. Be Less Boring
2. Go Fug Yourself
3. 4 Kids, Mom, and Dad
4. Alive in Kyoto

Four Of Your Favorite Foods:

1. Pizza
2. Sushi
3. Cheddar cheese
4. Cookies

Four Places You’d Rather Be:

1. Up in the foothills of Boulder, CO
2. Kailua Beach
3. In a home of my own
4. Actually, I'm really where I want to be

Four Albums You Can’t Live Without:

1. The Who-- Quadrophenia
2. Black Crowes-- The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
3. Rolling Stones-- Let It Bleed
4. Foo Fighters-- There Is Nothing Left To Lose

Four Vehicles I’ve Owned:

1. 1980 Camaro, automatic (bleh)
2. early 80s Mazda MPV, stick
3. Honda HRV, stick
4. 1998 Subaru Forrester, automatic

Weirdo

It seems like I've somehow come to like winter. It used to be so depressing, but now I kind of enjoy it. Maybe it's just because we've had a fairly mild winter so far. This past week it was in the 50s and most of the snow had melted away. Last night winter returned with snow and ice and today has been one of those leaden sky January days. I stayed in my jammies until early afternoon and frogged the scarf I'm currently working on for the third time and restarted it in a completely different pattern. Then I got dressed and went out to shovel the stairs and the driveway. The snow is different every time. This time it was kind of sherbet-y, but only a few inches of it fell so it wasn't too tough to shovel.
The girl and I had to go to the mall to return a suit jacket I bought for the consulting gig I have coming up in a couple of weeks. I was pleased to have found a nice suit on sale and then when my sister stopped by to check it out yesterday the first thing she noticed was a big stain on the back of the shoulder that I had completely missed. Guess it's better to know now when I can still do something about it then find out about it on the day I need to wear it. Anyway, we did a commando mission to the mall. In and out as quickly as possible. Now we're home, all cozy with the fireplace going. January really isn't so bad after all.