KonSola

Hi guys, I'm new here

I've been in Japan since September last year. Right now I have an english teacher job in Tsukuba, Ibaraki.

When I first came here, though, I interviewed for industrial designer positions - I used to work as an industrial designer in USA. Alot of weird and stupid things happened which put me in the teaching position. For example, I was interviewing with Brother Company in Nagoya and the design director loved my work and wanted to hire me...but a week after the interview he died of a heart attack - my meal ticket was suddenly gone. After running into alot of bad luck, I was considering going back to USA, but for some strange reason I decided to stay and get an english teacher job with the hope of getting a design job in the future.

I can't really say that I'm really all that thrilled with my current situation... I went thru alot of negative crap back in USA prior to coming to Japan and having more negative crap happen to me here was not exactly an easy thing to swallow. I try to have a positive attitude when I teach english and I make classes as fun as I can. I enjoy talking with students, but in the end I still have this strong desire to go back to design. If somebody threw me a design employment opportunity at my door tomorrow then I wouldn't even think twice - I'd take it and run with it.

English teaching business in Japan is not exactly a clean business. There is alot of schools who do their fair share of cheating. For example, recently NOVA got accused of providing illegitamate health insurance to their teachers. I'm finding out that many of them are being run by rather selfish people - as long as you do something profitable to them for little money then everything is cool, but if you ask them for a small favor then forget about it.

I decided to take an attitude of I don't care about the english teaching world and then think of this experience as a temporary bus stop on a trip. I try to use the time to learn Japanese, meet some new people and try to have a good time. Tsukuba is a rather boring town, though, and now I'm considering looking for a job elsewhere (like Tokyo).

As far as the design job goes...for now I don't know what will happen. I will give Japan a little more time and see what happens. If I get design opportunity then great...I will stay much longer. If Japan does not provide me with a design opportunity in the near future then I will have no choice but to bail out and perhaps go to Taiwan.

Being a designer is like being a carton of milk with an expiration date...it eventually goes bad. If you leave it in the refrigerator, then it will take much longer for it to go bad. If you take it out of the refrigerator and forget to put it back in then it will go bad quicker. Right now I'm a designer without a design job - a milk carton that has been taken out of the fridge. I cannot allow for this status quoe to remain. If I have to leave Japan in order to save my career then that is what I will have to do. . . I hope that doesn't happen.

Hey Maciej

czy ty jestes Polak?

I live in Tsukuba, Ibaraki. I used to be an industrial designer in USA, but now I teach english. I would like to go back to industrial design, though. Do you have any suggestions?