On potential success and being a nosy bastard

Oh my god, you guys, I'm so excited! O has a friend who worked as a teacher in Japan for a while, living right in Shinjuku, heart of Tokyo, and apparently having a really awesome time with no formal teaching education and just winging it. I started talking to her on facebook to milk her for information, and she promised to send the school she worked at an email promoting me, saying that she was sure I'd do really well in Japan seeing as she'd done well too, and she didn't have any real qualifications.

It's a break. A real break. It might not lead anywhere, but it's a start at getting my name out there and applying for jobs in a serious way. It's the start of something. And if it does lead somewhere, it leads me right to where I want to go.

The happiness that followed that facebook exchange though! I bounced away to work with a spring in my step and a feeling of real hope in my chest, like a hug from the inside. The kindness of strangers is one of those things that surprises me to no end. I'm nothing to this girl but someone she met briefly through a friend and shared a moment of G Dragon admiration with at a party, and then she offers me pretty much a shot at my dream on a platter just out of the kindness of her heart. I've been lucky to continuously find people like that. I wonder if I ever do anything like that to others without thinking about it, and if they feel as eternally grateful as I do now. Now I just need to write something awesome to make me sound like just what they need and ever wished for in an English teacher.

I was thinking about Karate Husband and his family yesterday after they'd had their dinner in the restaurant. Karate Husband is a bit of an enigma to me. He alters between being the adorable little old man who called me a 'little fish' on my first day of work and asked me if I'd 'found good waters', and the angry karate master who yells at people who don't do things his way. I like Karate Husband. He's never given me reason to dislike him. Watching him with his wife and his family, calling his wife pet names and cuddling with his grandson, I feel not only that he can be completely endearing at will, but that while he's uncompromising, he's not a bad man. I respect Karate Husband, and I think that's why we have this nice atmosphere going on.

The other Swedish girls have worked at the restaurant for years, and are thus well versed in all things gossip about Karate Husband and his Karate family. Just the other week one of the Swedish waitresses was telling me about SameName, and how she was raised solely by her Swedish mom. "Yeah, she just left and kinda hid from Karate Husband," she gossiped away, "so SameName didn't really know him while growing up. But it's not strange," she added, seeing that I probably looked a bit perplexed. "Karate Husband beats all his women." And she said it like it was common knowledge and the most natural thing in the world. I was stunned. I mean, I know he can be rough when he's pissed off, but I have such a hard time matching this little old man to the image of someone who hits his wife. If it's true, then no wonder he's got two divorces/separations under his belt. I felt shocked at the accusation, and while I hope it isn't true, there's a part of me that knows that it might be, and as such my respect for Karate Husband is laced with wariness and a bit of a desire to keep my distance.

Not the actual Karate family, but you get my drift.

The whole Karate family intrigues me in a way. Karate Husband's youngest (? once again, I have no real clue about what order his millions of children come in) son is probably 16-17 or so. He looks very much like a high school student. He comes in every now and then, and every time he does I just think about how madly in love with him I would've been if I were his age (or younger). It would've been bad. I would've been obsessive. As more or less of an adult, it feels a bit weird thinking about it when he's around in the restaurant. I'm not really perving, I'm just reminiscing about how spastic of a teenager I was, and nodding my head in approval at how hot this guy's going to be once he hits 25. The only thing I know about Karate Husband's younger daughter is that she has a resting bitch face and once brought a group of friends to the restaurant, giving them all food before leaving without having anyone pay for it. I mean, that's fine, but generally they'll tell you first. Luckily everyone I'm in contact with at work knows more than I do, and aren't shy to gossip about it.

Apparently none of his younger children speak all that much Swedish, going to international schools and instead only speaking English and Japanese. I find it a bit strange and kinda sad that people who've lived in a country all their lives don't know the language. It could be just because I'm a huge language nerd, but whatever. It's fine if they want to keep an international life style going, but it just seems like they're missing out on stuff. Ah well. I'll keep delving deeper into this mystery. Being a nosy bastard is kinda my thing.