So it looks like my prospects of getting a job are much higher than I thought, but a different problem has come up that could really impede my ability to stay longer than one and a half years.

After I started flicking out my resume, I got struck down with this really bad cough. I started getting these requests from Agencies for interviews, and I was hoping it would go before then. No such luck, I had to postpone one but the guy had a cold himself and he understood. The problem was, I couldn’t talk at all. I decided to go through with one last Monday regardless of how I felt. I was trying all different kinds of medicine, sprays, gargles, lozenges, but they had absolutely no effect. Yes, I knew what I was taking as I can read that much.

The interview on Monday went okay, but it was with an agency so from there they send me job offers… which tend to be offers from job sites I already belong to. Ehh.

Turns out I could talk okay, as long as I had some water, and I didn’t laugh or I would lose a lung (which happened a few times). They had a Japanese interview which was interesting. He asked me a few things but I was worried about the politeness of my Japanese so I didn’t come off too confident. I remember he asked me about why I picked Japanese and came to Japan, so I started talking about looking at different countries in the world, narrowing down the decision based on language interest. I kept pretty clear about my anime and figure obsession. After I told him that, he said “Oh, usually when I ask foreigners that they say games and anime. That’s not the same for you?” and I was all “Oh, I sometimes watch anime to practice my Japanese.”

Aside from that, the interview was really good, I was on my toes, asking a lot of questions, I know I left a good impression. However it was from there that we came across a problem. I can’t remember why at the moment, but it’s easier to get a Visa when you have a University Degree. I knew this, which is why I came here on a Working Holiday Visa. That’s a good one and a half years. I also know you can get a Visa if you have ten years work experience in a particular field. I only have seven in IT, so that wasn’t an option. I thought there was a Company Sponsored Visa where a company decides they want you to stay in the country, and they organise a Visa for you. Turns out this isn’t the case… so if I want to stay longer than one and a half years, I’ll need to try and go for an Engineering Visa with only eight and a half years in IT. So we’ll see how that goes at the time.

I had an agency interview on Tuesday as well, but this was mainly a technical interview. This was great, I know I impresssed the guy. They offered me a Windows Server position from a client paying more than I’ve been paid before so that was nice. We’ll see how that goes.

Wednesday I had part time work with the guy I mentioned before. That went even better. It was just placing and building machines for a new startup company. They had their own build, but the build script broke during the build process. I impressed both the client and my boss by troubleshooting it to the fact that the build script didn’t anticipate extra partitions on the hard drive, blew them away and kicked the script off again. This was important as the company was from the US and their own IT department were sleeping. He gave me work on Thursday as well. This was with a Japanese company and was the first time he saw me use my Japanese and deal with other technical issues. This went very well too, I tried to use really polite Japanese at the beginning, but moved into “Normal Polite” Japanese and a little Plain Japanese, no one really seemed to care and there were no misunderstandings on either side.

In my previous agency interviews I said to them that I would have no technical problems dealing with Windows machines or Servers, and that the only thing I was worried about was my Japanese. Both interviews said that IT systems are usually in English, and my Japanese was good enough to get a point across and to understand a problem, so the politeness was a non issue. It looks like this is the case, and getting a job was going to be easier than I thought.

I had work on Friday too, emergency part time work from the same place I was getting work from before. Sunday I was helping a friend at a doujinshi convention (dictionary translates doujinshi as “(1) magazine published by fans; fanzine; (2) publication aimed at a particular hobby group; (3) publication sold directly, and not via commercial publishers” which is a better translation than I can do) helping him sell a game he and a few guys made. I plan on writing a post about that tomorrow.

Tomorrow I have an actual interview with a University doing internal IT work there. I’m sure it’s going to go awesomely. I’m also going to try and update my blog more frequently. I think I may have said that before too?
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