No, Really, I Am an American

We had a meeting at work on Sunday, and they gave us two options. Option A was go back to work immediately, but not necessarily as a teacher. The work would include moving boxes, cleaning, basically grunt work but paid at the same rate as before. The hours are subject to change as are the duties. Not overly appealing, but it’s work and it’s money. Option B is to start teaching again Jan 10 with a 150,000 Yen “gift” (not an advance, not a bonus) to tide us over until then. With this option we would be paid within the next few days, but then not again until Feb 5th due to pay periods and the like. Not too shabby, but not necessarily enough.

My first instinct was to go with Option B; seemed nice and everything. After some thought, however, Option A would be more money and give me something to do. Now that Gunthar Rob is gone (he left today), I won’t have an easily accessible coffee-buddy anymore. It’s been tolerable this past month mostly due to the fact that Gunthar Rob was around to waste time with. I’m not gonna kid myself into believing that I’ll be productive and while the private lessons are good, they’re not exactly enough in terms of savings. The other bit of information confirmed is that I will be leaving in March.

So yeah. Not exactly looking forward to the grunt-work, but I also won’t be coming home at 11:00 every night either, which is kind of a nice thing. Oh. And I probably won’t be home for Christmas, so I think that pulls me out of the gift thing.