Another One Bites The Dust

My workplace has a pretty high turnover rate, when compared to other industries. It must be the nature of the work. Any university educated individual can do the work, and the job is not particulary stressful either.

However, it is hard to gain a feeling of accomplishment. It's also difficult to find ways in varry the work. Teaching always comes first, then personal products might be possible on low-days. But really, these are not the things that cause people to quit. I think it is Japan itself. Life here is no
t comfortable for everyone, and our salary is not enough to compensate.

The last co-worker to leave left for neither of these reasons. She left because life events pulled her away. Her leaving makes me think, when and for what reason will I change my work.

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sent from W-ZERO3

つづく

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桜 Sakura

Last week the Sakura trees started to really bloom here in Yokohama. Sakura is Japanese for "Cherry Blossom", the trees with vibrantly white and pink flowers in the spring.

I have recently been keeping up-to-date with co-workers and friends through Facebook. On Facebook I post pictures and write comments to friends, and they do the same. Facebook has over 200 million members, so sometimes I receive messages from people I have completely forgotten. It's a very strange feeling when people whom I have forgotten have not forgotten me. It's like a mix of guilt and happiness.

On a last note, today after work my friends I did our regular once a week activity of drinking a beer outside while chatting about life or whatever. Today a very strange man decided to join us. This old fella was in his 50s or 60s, with stringy hair and not so clean clothes. He slowly came close to our group, horizontally like a crab. Clearly he was shy and didn't know how to start a conversation. I don't know exactly why he wanted to talk to us. Maybe he wanted to practice English, or just talk with non-Japanese in general. In the end, while my friends shunned him and I tried to chat with him in his broken English for about 5 minutes before he left. I could have spoken Japanese with him, but I honestly didn't want him to feel too comfortable around me.

つづく

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