no turning back

So, had the 2nd interview in Japanese with the law firm on Wednesday afternoon. It went well… I think…  They Japanese help desk guy was impressed with my Japanese. The sample emails they had me look at were nothing difficult… They had me do some trivial tasks like check driver versions and memory size and stuff like that… nothing difficult.

The guys really made it seem like they wanted me and were ready to hire me. But I guess theres at least two more hoops I have to jump through. There’s a phone interview with the regional IT manager out of Singapore, and then an interview with the head partner for the Tokyo branch of the law firm… But, again, the guys made it sound like those interviews had less to do with the hiring process and were more just formalities to play along with. But, obviously they can’t give me a formal offer until all that is done… and if they don’t get back to me today about the phone interview, then it probably won’t be happening until after golden week. If they DO schedule the phone interview, then I’ll assume they do want me for real and I’ll assume I can start celebrating…

But, for now… all I can do is wait and hope…

Because I already told my school and the Board of Education that I’m not coming back after July… (but really it might be way sooner than July that I’m out of here). Because ALT programs like JET and the one I’m in have everyone re-contract at the end of February (a full 5 months before the current contract ends), and because I said “yes” at that time… evidently there won’t be anyone coming to replace me for 2008-2009… So once word spreads to all the rest of the teachers, I’ll probably be getting some dirty looks. I can’t wait to give them my 30 day notice… (if I get the chance to…).

I actually had been intending to NOT re-contract in February, but the wife thought it would be better to be safe and have this job here as a safety net…. but now the safety net is gone and I’ll just have to work harder to find a job (if this law firm thing doesn’t work out… but I hope it does… it looks really good! great people! good location! good hours! permanent! … this is all causing grey hairs! And I’m only 24!)

For all the Mario Kart Wii fans… »« things are looking up!