I've been looking for a job for, like, six months. My company told me in June that they weren't gonna renew my contract, but they wouldn't tell me why, and that they still wanted my to do my best for Goshima-Shibucho and the company's bottom line.

So I started checking out the other English conversation schools in the area (the area being Japan). Most of them said that they tend to hire with a two month turnaround, so to check back two months before my contract ended. That takes us from July to about December.

In December I find out that most of these schools are going to postpone all their new hiring until after the new year. Which means I had about a two week window in which to find a job and a new apartment before my current job and apartment are turned over to my replacement.

Which brings us to the present. I've spent over nine hours riding trains today, been to one interview in Nagano (that place where they had the winter Olympics not so long ago) and have just arrived in Shibuya, the part of Tokyo that looks most like Blade Runner, to find that I have forgotten my map to tomorrow's interview. So I strolled around until I could find a Kinko's, printed out the map, and decided to take a minute to tell you all what I've been doing. After this I'll eat some takoyaki from a vendor's cart on the street, and find a capsule hotel so I can rent a 2 meter tube to sleep in for the night. And tomorrow, I'll act like I'm really interested in relocating to Tokyo to do essentially the same job I'm doing now, but for slightly less pay and a much smaller apartment. Whee!

What a fan-fucking-tastic life this is, huh?