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Howdy fellow gaijins!
I know I've gone dark on teaching Japanese, blogging, and doing all things Japanese related for the past few months since I have made my return to Dallas-Fort Worth. A few of my former students, colleagues, and fans have reached out to me to see what I have been doing and since it has been awhile since I last wrote, I might as well write.
Life has been very good for me since coming home, albeit a few hiccups along the way. I joined my Dad's company back in November and am currently working at their DFW Airport ramp, learning logistics and leadership (though rather informally since I cannot start formal leadership training until late summer should I desire to pursue it further). While the money doesn't really compare to what I previously made during my brief interpreter / translator stint, I am MUCH happier at this company and thanks to working early-early (yes, EARLY) morning hours, I would much rather deal with this and the cold weather on the DFW Airport tarmac loading and unloading airplanes than deal with persnickety Japanese managers.
In addition to working, I have also set up another small business called "The Mikazuki Express", which, if I do say so myself, much more lucrative than Simple Gaijin is in terms of the money being made. In the span of only 2 months since starting operations, I have made more money shuttling people around DFW than I ever had teaching Japanese in 4 years of teaching Japanese. Not only that, with my profile information telling my riders that I speak Japanese and have lived in Japan, I get a lot of conversation telling my riders about my misadventures around Japan and with Japanese companies.
Sorry to say this, but Simple Gaijin will be officially closing their Japanese language teaching services due to lack of interest from clients and just not worth spending more money on. But rest assured, I will still be around to blog.
Furthermore, I have decided to fully restart my Japanese Language studies back at the JLPT N3 level. It became evident to me that perhaps my Japanese really wasn't that great to begin with, and in early December 2018, I took the N3 at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
Here were my results...
Not that bad (I mean, scoring 40+ in each section is nothing to scoff at), but there is still so much for me to re-learn. In addition to that, since it is very clear that the Japanese don't understand me when I talk, I also made the active effort to avoid using my Japanese around Japanese people whenever possible, except for when talking to Ayaka and her family members. It's actually kind of funny when Japanese people realize I speak Japanese and ask me (to this sort of question) 『なんで私に日本語で話さないのか？』. And I just them a look like their stupid and reply rather rudely 『はあ？どういう意味？意味が分からない。』
Finally, I am also taking classes at Dallas County Community College in Computer Science as well to expand my skill base. Currently, I am taking a 9-week course on Oracle SQL. It's extremely interesting that I can mix my passion of computers and Japanese together, as I have been working on a few pet projects of mine for the class. To name a few, I'm working on a comprehensive Kanji database and a JLPT vocabulary database from the N5 all the way up to the N1. Best part is... they are my own creations, and I plan on using them for my own intents and purposes.
Well, enough talk. I gotta get back to class. That database isn't going to write itself, and I still have a lot of JETs and Japanese businessmen to offend being a Gaijin.