On work woes and wonders

I'm weird with grades. Just completely irrational. I take them way too seriously, to a point where it just gets stupid. Why is this coming up now? Well, my lessons are graded by the students. They don't always grade them, sofar only three people have, which is just over 20% of the number of people I've taught. Anywho, the first two left bright and shiny 5's, which was a great ego boost for my first day. Person number three, however, left a 3. I tried to wrack my brain as to who this might've been, and I think it might've been the very intense high school PE teacher who was kinda obsessed with soccer, who might've not wanted to talk all lesson as we accidentally ended up doing (rather than just half as specified in his information). A 3 isn't even particularly bad, it's still a passing score, but I feel a little embarrassed about it. I mean, I'm new and all, but I think I should be able to do better.

Having said that, a 3's not very different from a 4, and if my grades had been all 4's, then I wouldn't be upset. However, if that were the case, then my average would've actually been lower than what it is now. I think I'm missing the consistency. I shouldn't be beating myself up about this, yesterday was only my second day after all. As long as it's not a negative, which is a 1 or 2, I'm still in the clear. Stupid brain to be wired to be unhappy with a passing grade. I should just be chill about it.

So work has begun. After three long days of (rather boring) Initial Certification, and some On the Job Certification, they let me out to teach for the first time on Thursday. It's... interesting, to say the least. I'm not sue if I'm any good at it yet. At least I'm getting a lot better at hiding my crippling nerves. Some people are actually fun to talk to, while others I just have to try to survive as best I can. It's not always easy to know what to do or say, and when you're just not connecting either, there's not much saving the lesson from mediocrity. I think that's just one of the things that comes with experience. I'm probably bound to mess up a little in the beginning, but so far I'm getting quite a lot of bookings, half of which are blue. My Turkish-Canadian colleague two booths down happily stated that this was not uncommon with females, and given that Sweden has a pretty good reputation of being an exotic place, I could see booking a lot of clients based just on that. "Ikebukuro's a big place, there are lots of people. Mostly business men who work late, you know, so that's probably mostly who you'll be dealing with."

It's probably true, most clients that I have dealt with have been male, in their 30's and 40's, and to my great relief none of them have been weird or creepy. Some maybe a little odd, like the patent attorney who told me that he'd just spent his day off practicing karaoke by himself for three hours to prepare for his company karaoke parties, but most are pretty endearing, like the guy I taught who could hardly say a thing in English but loved Tarantino films. Most of them are probably nervous, just like me, and most lessons have gone off without much of a snag and with me actually enjoying myself.

So far things have been pretty fun, but I've gotta say that I'm not completely psyched to maybe have to swing by work today on what was supposed to be my one day off this week. They're having kinda like an office party for the clients to meet and mingle with the staff, and the person in charge of my Learning Studio (who's been a real sweetheart and really looked out for me) told me that it would be a good opportunity to try to chat some clients up, and maybe get some bookings out of it. He also offered to open up some slots of what is otherwise a pretty filled-up day, so I want to show that I'm really taking this seriously. That being said, I was really looking forward to a day of laziness. Ah well.

I'm still hating the suit, although not as much as I was in the beginning. They seem pretty relaxed with it at work, and I guess I'm getting used to it, but I miss my clothes. That being said, Japan at least has a good supply of relatively cute work clothes without breaking the bank. I made my first trip to Uniqlo yesterday when I noticed that all of my shirts were kinda dirty, and needed a new one ASAP, and it ended up being pretty good even. At least if I can tell myself I don't look terribly un-cute, and that makes the suit more bearable. I just wish I could afford to do something with my hair. Right now it's just not even remotely close to not-terrible. Humidity makes it do some seriously weird shit, and at least until it gets longer, I'm going to want to get a better cut or a straight-perm or something, because this 60's Velma-from-Scooby-Doo-shit that it's playing at is awkward, to say the least. The fact that every single young Japanese woman who's come to my lessons has been almost unbelievably cute and very trendy just makes me feel even more like a corporate blob with a bad haircut. Anywho, given time that shit will all sort itself out as well. I'm allowing myself to have a bit of a transitional period after all. I don't need to have all my shit together just yet, and thank fuck for that, because I'm still completely lost.