Sunny Side-Up

How do you like your eggs? I enjoy my eggs poached, soft-boiled, hard-boiled, over easy and scrambled, but I think my favorite is sunny-side up. I just had three sunny-side up eggs with salt, pepper, and ketchup over a bed of rice. A fantastic breakfast all-around!

So now I’ve been in Tokyo officially 1 month and 3 days. And how is it? Well, overall I’d say it’s pretty good! I spend my days shopping for menial things (I'm in desperate need of some clothes hangers, and I'm trying to find a new pair of slippers but in Tokyo size 12 is hard to come by), playing video games (the Wii is very popular here at Oakhouse. Whenever I take it out into the common area, finding a few friends who are up for a round of Mario Kart is never a problem!) sending out resumes, and meeting with prospective private English students.

After my last blog, and with some of the comments I got on Facebook, I feel I need to post a follow-up blog to clear up a couple things. So here is the honest truth in black and white:

• After the ‘heartbreaker’, when I didn’t get the job at Citibank, I felt really down. I seriously worried about whether or not I could stay here long term, and was thinking about returning to Canada in June.

• Another thing that had me deeply worried is that I didn’t anticipate quite how long the visa process can take. Apparently, while usually it can take about one month before you can start working, there are times where the process can drag on for as long as three months. That means that even if I found a job in May, it could be as late as August before I can actually get a paycheck.

• I began to lament about my finances.. sure I have savings now but, can they last long enough?

But I realized that if I succumb to this kind of negative thinking then I may as well go back to Toronto right now, since I’ll have already ‘lost’.. If I’m going to think negatively like this, then I’ll never succeed here and I’ll never be able to realize my dream.

As many of you know, over the years prior to moving here, I’ve made many friends from Japan and other parts of East Asia who are visiting Toronto. Many of my Canadian friends would often ask “where do they get the money?”

Well, the answer to that question is that some of them have parental support, but many of them don’t. And the ones that don’t, they saved up their money, about $10,000 dollars, and they managed to survive in Toronto sometimes for 1 year or more on that small amount. Just like me, they dealt with visa issues, struggled with language, and had to deal with a certain level of inaccessibility due to the sheer difference between the way things work in Canada vs. they way things work in Asia.

I started to think about how much they loved Canada and loved Toronto, and what sacrifices they would make to stay there. This inspired me a lot.

Another thing I reminded myself is that I'm not attempting to do the impossible. There are many people in Japan who have done the exact same thing that I'm trying to do. I'm not asking for the moon and the stars, just a decent steady job doing the same kind of work I've been doing for over ten years on a professional, full-time basis. This is a realistic and attainable goal.

I decided that no matter what, I will stay in Tokyo for at least six months. And hopefully a job will surface within that time. In the meantime, I’ll take on as many private English students as I can, to cover costs. I already have 5 hours/week of paid teaching lined up and I’m really just getting started. If I can expand this to about 20 hours a week then I’ll have my living expenses completely covered.

And amazingly enough, as soon as I started to think more positively, my phone started ringing again. I got a call from an outsourcing company about a Help Desk position, as well as a call from a recruiter about a Technical Support Manager position. In both cases, they are aware of my visa status yet they are still interested.

So don’t worry about me too much!