end of the year dinner 2012 （忘年会）
this has been an up and down week. it started with an up when we had our end of the year dinner on Tuesday for the daycare staff. i had a half day then, so i was lucky enough to go back home and get spruced up unlike some of my other coworkers. i also left Kay in hubs' care that night, so i was free to talk with my coworkers and actually *gasp* socialize! something that i don't do often when you have to keep an eye on 10-14 kids and get all your work done before your shift ends, so you don't have to stay overtime because you don't get paid overtime. :P
the dinner was at a Japanese restaurant called "Yabu" which served very typical "washoku" or Japanese cuisine. very high end and mostly has little seafood dishes that one can finish in 3-4 bites. think of French cuisine but every dish is some sort of fish cooked in a different way... :P now, i had a great time, and i thought the food was pretty good, but you know us Americans. we want our red meat and carbs and be totally stuffed at the end of each meal in order to feel that the insane price we paid for was worth it. okay, maybe not all Americans are like that, but at least i am. ^_^;;
some end of the year events are paid for by the company but some aren't. ours was the latter, so i had to pay 2,000 yen for a meal that honestly didn't really fill me up. despite my gripes about the restuarant, it was the freshest seafood i've had in a long time. :) down below, you can see what we ate:
basically, every dish was some sort of fish, except for the third dish where they served oysters in a radish porrige, which was really good :) totally the best dish out of the whole meal ^_^ the ice cream was sesame flavored, which was a little different but went well with the seafood we had.
there were only 8 of us that night, but we had to sit at two tables. i was the first to arrive, so i sat at the very end. when everyone else came over, the other teachers who could speak English sat next to me, C-sensei and S-sensei as well as the art teacher who spoke only a little English but it didn't matter. i'm glad that the shyacho-san sat at the other table, because all they did the whole time was talk shop... :P at least at our table, i got to learn more about my coworkers and got to have a few laughs along the way. :) it was a very pleasant night.
i went back to work the next day really happy, but the shyacho-san threw a wrench in everything right after we got off of work. S-sensei gave me and C-sensei a new working schedule, which basically cut my hours down by half AND gave me a split schedule. in a nut shell, the shyacho-san is trying to cut her costs by letting me stay there as many hours as i can but only paying me for the teaching times. i was really upset about the schedule change, which S-sensei said they could "work out" if possible, but i doubt that the shyacho-san will agree on any terms that require her to increase or even double my wages, ykwim? :P also, she probably couldn't do that even if she wanted to since our student numbers are going to decrease to just 10 or so kids after the school year ends in March. if the shyacho-san doesn't want to invest any more of her money into the daycare to get a sales team going or even fix our retarded webpage, then i don't know how she's going to get more students ~_~;; she doesn't understand that opening an eikaiwa or any kind of English school could take almost 3 years of investing before you even see a profit! she's only on year 2 and she's had it already. it's like i'm back at my old job back in 2004! :(
i talked it over with hubs that night, and he suggests that we start with our plans to get Kay into a regular hoikuen for her last year before 1st grade. hubs is going to apply for a spot at the hoiuken that's like right down the street from us, and hopefully we'll be able to see if she got in or not in February. in the meantime, i'm going to have to look for a THIRD job, because having my pay cut in half is just not acceptable. i probably won't stay at the daycare if i find something else that pays better either. although, i do hope to keep my morning hours at the daycare and just teach somewhere else in the afternoons/evenings. that, plus my Saturday job will be good enough to keep our heads above water. the thought of teaching at three places is actually a little daunting for me since i have a tendancy but i bet a lot of English teachers end up doing just that and I've got to stop whining. i've been really fortunate up until now, and
the dinner was at a Japanese restaurant called "Yabu" which served very typical "washoku" or Japanese cuisine. very high end and mostly has little seafood dishes that one can finish in 3-4 bites. think of French cuisine but every dish is some sort of fish cooked in a different way... :P now, i had a great time, and i thought the food was pretty good, but you know us Americans. we want our red meat and carbs and be totally stuffed at the end of each meal in order to feel that the insane price we paid for was worth it. okay, maybe not all Americans are like that, but at least i am. ^_^;;
some end of the year events are paid for by the company but some aren't. ours was the latter, so i had to pay 2,000 yen for a meal that honestly didn't really fill me up. despite my gripes about the restuarant, it was the freshest seafood i've had in a long time. :) down below, you can see what we ate:
basically, every dish was some sort of fish, except for the third dish where they served oysters in a radish porrige, which was really good :) totally the best dish out of the whole meal ^_^ the ice cream was sesame flavored, which was a little different but went well with the seafood we had.
there were only 8 of us that night, but we had to sit at two tables. i was the first to arrive, so i sat at the very end. when everyone else came over, the other teachers who could speak English sat next to me, C-sensei and S-sensei as well as the art teacher who spoke only a little English but it didn't matter. i'm glad that the shyacho-san sat at the other table, because all they did the whole time was talk shop... :P at least at our table, i got to learn more about my coworkers and got to have a few laughs along the way. :) it was a very pleasant night.
i went back to work the next day really happy, but the shyacho-san threw a wrench in everything right after we got off of work. S-sensei gave me and C-sensei a new working schedule, which basically cut my hours down by half AND gave me a split schedule. in a nut shell, the shyacho-san is trying to cut her costs by letting me stay there as many hours as i can but only paying me for the teaching times. i was really upset about the schedule change, which S-sensei said they could "work out" if possible, but i doubt that the shyacho-san will agree on any terms that require her to increase or even double my wages, ykwim? :P also, she probably couldn't do that even if she wanted to since our student numbers are going to decrease to just 10 or so kids after the school year ends in March. if the shyacho-san doesn't want to invest any more of her money into the daycare to get a sales team going or even fix our retarded webpage, then i don't know how she's going to get more students ~_~;; she doesn't understand that opening an eikaiwa or any kind of English school could take almost 3 years of investing before you even see a profit! she's only on year 2 and she's had it already. it's like i'm back at my old job back in 2004! :(
i talked it over with hubs that night, and he suggests that we start with our plans to get Kay into a regular hoikuen for her last year before 1st grade. hubs is going to apply for a spot at the hoiuken that's like right down the street from us, and hopefully we'll be able to see if she got in or not in February. in the meantime, i'm going to have to look for a THIRD job, because having my pay cut in half is just not acceptable. i probably won't stay at the daycare if i find something else that pays better either. although, i do hope to keep my morning hours at the daycare and just teach somewhere else in the afternoons/evenings. that, plus my Saturday job will be good enough to keep our heads above water. the thought of teaching at three places is actually a little daunting for me since i have a tendancy but i bet a lot of English teachers end up doing just that and I've got to stop whining. i've been really fortunate up until now, and