Almost home!

So my arrival in England is now imminent, im now in the hang in there hang in there mode as i know im going home but have a month of time to kill beforehand so homesickness has suddenly incresed dramatically.

And i have left the son of satan aka NOVA from employment. I dont think I can really add to the millions of comments left on the internet by disgruntled former employees about the company. What I will say is NOVA is the worst of a bad bunch, it exemplifies all that is wrong with "corporate Japan," totally ruthless in its desire for profit and with no respect for the dignity of mankind. In short working for a big Japanese company is tantamount to corporate slavery, fewperks, long working hours, impossble to question authority. Furthermore what is often overlooked is that while many foreigners moan about eikaiwa its the Japanese staff who get the real short straw, at least we can choose our holidays and leave the office at a civilised hour. For staff they have to clench their teeth and get on with the job at hand for pay not much better than a bar tender back home.

I did get a lot out of teaching many students at nova but I think what I found disturbing was a lack of humanity and soul. I remember before my orientation I was drinking an orange juice in mcdonalds when my eye wandered and noticed there was a nova next door. I looked at mcdonalds and then I looked at Nova and then I realised they looked disarmingly similiar! I thought can hard core capitalism and teaching really work?

I was soon enlightened to this question during my training. After downing half a bottle of absinthe the night before I felt so bad that seeking refuge inside a whales bottom that had a bad case of the shits would have felt better. The day started ok as didnt have to speak much, I just focused on breathing and the art of farting by stealth. However, as it slowly dawned on me that I would actually have to teach the first 10 minutes of a lesson on my first day total panic drew in and I desperately tried to rally my survuving brains cells together. I could barely speak English that day let alone teach the bloody thing. Hands trembling, lesson fast approaching I appealed to my trainer for help. "Im sorry Paul, my brain isnt working STOP Brain cant work for much longger STOP. Anyway the calming influence he had on me worked and I entered the lesson to four gormless looking faces. Sweating profusuly and feeling I was actually going poo in my pants for the first time since i was four I started the lesson with a prepubscent sounding warcry "OOkkay leeets plaaay agameeee!!!"

I felt like a retard that day, in fact I was a retard that day, but I got through. And I continued on being a retard with or without half an bottle of absinthe in my stomach until my last day.

If any one knows of the game theme hospital workign for nova was the same. You get your buildings, buy your cubicles. A patient goes in and the doctor goes bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh. A dollar sign flashes KACHING and the patient leaves. Working for nova was exactly the same. A bell rings, you go in your manky cubicle, you go bleeeeeeeehh KACHING KACHING, bell rings, you leave. It was extremely hard to build human relationships, some of the students i taught in my last lesson i had known for over a year, yet there was no connection, when I left my last lesson it felt depressingly hollow experience.

Having said that i did meet some great ones, and have many amusing memories. Probably the most notable lesson was recently when I was teaching feelings. I was asking my students for different examples of feelings, such as happy, sad etc. One beshevelled looking doctor who had a face that looked like a used tea bag proposed that "moisty" was a most distinguished and wondurous feeling. I quickly proceeded and asked for examples of when someone might feel relieved, he promptly replied with a grin on his face "I feel relieved by my girlfriend and when I go to hong kong massage." "Thats great!!! ok how about excited?"(Thinking It could get no worse) and then when with a glint in his eye and a with a smile of disturbing geniality he uttered " I felt excited when I killed my first patient through intravenous injection."

I couldnt help myself but burst out laughing for the sheer craziness and surreality of it all.

But for me this link somes up everything, David Brent eat your heart out www.nova.ne.jp/junior/dance