Job Update
Alright alright alright alright! I’ve not posted in a few days, and I feel like I’m neglecting the blog a bit. Today’s post will be short, but at least it’ll be about Japan. Ha ha. 
Two big changes have officially taken place now. My job title has been slightly altered and I’ve been given a new school.
I applied for the position of Ehime PA a few months ago – and I was chosen. I’m the Northern PA, and my good buddy Wendy is the Southern PA. When our powers combine…we are…yeah, I’ll quit that joke while I’m ahead. But seriously, we’ll make a great team. PA stands for Prefectural Advisor. We’re both still full time ALTs – both senior high ALTs, actually – but we’ve added on the PA bit on top of it all. In Japanese, “ALT” (short for “Assistant Language Teacher”) is rendered 外国語指導助手 (gaikokugo shidou jyoshu). Since Wendy and I both teach English, we’re more specifically referred to as 英語指導助手 (eigo shidou jyoshu). These titles are pretty darn similar. The titles for PA in English and Japanese don’t match up quite as neatly. “Prefectural Advisor” is カウンセリング担当者 (kaunseringu tantousya), which may be re-translated as “person in charge of counseling.” Sounds much more high falutin’ in English, doesn’t it? Ha ha. 
In any event, we’ll be available to all of the ALTs in Ehime Prefecture for counseling, we’ll be interacting with our Japanese PA counterparts at the Prefectural Government level, and we’ll be the folks who help plan and run most ALT-centric big events. You can read more about what I can do for you as a PA here (English) or here (Japanese). I often joke with my colleagues who believe that I’ve been promoted. I tell them that if it’s a promotion, it’s a “horizontal promotion” – my salary doesn’t go up; the only difference is that my free time evaporates! Ha ha. In any event, I’m really excited to be one of Ehime’s new foreign PAs! 宜しくお願いします！
In other news, I completed my first visitation to Imabari Kougyou (Technical) High School or 今治工業高校 today. As you can see, they’ve got a wicked school seal. Did you see the seals of my other schools? I think Kougyou gives Yuge some competition. Anyway, during a recent visit to Imabari Minami, I met with my new supervisor for Kougyou, Mr. Ishii. He’s a pretty cool dude. He showed me the area around Kougyou – it’s kind of tricky, like they dropped the high school smack dab in the middle of a residential area with no way in or out. In fact, there are only 2 ways to get to it that I know of – a back alley and a really narrow frontage road. Thank goodness he took the time to show me the area! I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I’d previously worked with one of my English teachers at an English Challenge Camp in Saijo during my first summer as an ALT (seriously…probably about a week after I landed here). Watanabe-sensei was thrilled that I remembered her, and we quickly regained our teaching style and rapport. I also teach with Masukane-sensei, whose name I think I mangled two or three times today. Sigh. She forgives me. Anyway, the students at Kougyou are all hilarious – over the top, excited, yelling, making crude jokes, etc. I had a lot of fun messing with them on my first day. They are really comfortable in their own skins – so they have no problems attempting interaction with me. Lots of kids imagine that they will have communication problems, so they prefer to awkwardly nod at me and avoid me in general. Not these kids. They rule (when they aren’t scary). They swarmed me a few times in the hallway, which is hard to escape from. The kids are all on vocational technical tracks including Machinery, Electronics, Robotics, Systems & Software, Design, etc. Neat stuff! Anyway, they all made me feel very welcomed. I look forward to teaching there again.
