I have all my materials for Sheffield, so I will be sending those out by the end of this week. Hopefully I will hear from them soon about when I will know (definitively) whether I am in or out.
Miki is leaving for Tokyo July 30th. I'm sad, but at the same time, I'm excited for her. Tokyo is an amazing place full of amazing and crazy things. Hopefully she doesn't get swept away by the huge crowds in Shibuya, but I think she'll be fine.
Must finish writing essays and other things for jobs in Japan. I also need some sort of headset for a skype interview.
Meanwhile, Ronald Mallett is building a time machine:
So I decided I don't just want to go to University. Because my program is distance learning, I'll only be meeting up with my classmates twice a year. That's pretty lonely, so I think the best course of action would be to get a job.
So far, I've gotten two interview offers, and I'm in the 2nd stage with another school. I haven't passed 2kyuu yet to be able to get a non-teaching job, but I don't think I would want to work in a Japanese company anyway.
I had my interview last night. It went fine, there were no curveballs, but at the end of the interview, the director told me that there would be a possibility that I might not be asked to contract with the school.
The problem is: before I applied, they extended contracts to two other teachers. The teachers, however, haven't gotten back to the school, so now I have to wait to see what happens with those other teachers. If they get back to the school, I'll be out of a job. If they don't, I'll have the job. Interesting...
But no worries: I'm applying to more schools in Medan. I don't think it should be a problem. The worst case scenario is that I'll be in a different location (perhaps Jakarta or Papua?) and I'll have to visit Maya every two weeks or something like that, which isn't a problem. It would be nice to be with Maya, though it's not like we haven't been apart for long periods of time.
Being black isn't something that happened overnight. I didn't wake up one day, look in the mirror and see a black person. For 23 years, I've lived my life with brown skin, curly black hair and a broad nose.
My skin color and hair texture might seem like a strange topic for my first blog entry, but I wanted to make something clear: this blog will talk about being black, living black, and seeing the world through a black woman's eyes. I don't consider myself that different from my non-black friends, family and colleagues, but it wouldn't be fair to me or anyone else to ignore the fact that my experiences have been and will continue to be shaped by my skin color and culture.
With that said:
The search for jobs in Indonesia (and, for safe jobs in S. Korea) has begun! My sister, the lovely Black Girl in Indonesia will be sending her CV out to at least 2 companies today, to judge the response. Some others have asked for a photo, and while many potential ESL teachers wouldn't cringe at the thought of supplying one, for me, there's always a slight hesitation because I know, 95% of the time, the photo along with the application, will go into the trash. C'est la vie, of course. It makes finding that 5% all the more enjoyable.
I've been reading blogs about black American women living and working in Asia, specifically Japan (where I once spent a year as an undergrad) and South Korea. Check out the sidebar for their websites.
