After living in Japan for over one year already, I think some of you might be curious as to what my room looks like. I have never really put up pictures because there simply was nothing interesting in my room to see, except for the occasional rubbish and other stuff you do not want to see (or I do not want to show).

I bought a new book case so I could put stuff away, and I just happened to be in a cleaning frenzy the last few days, so now my room is worth to be shown to the world. Behold my small, but comfortable home.

A friend of mine, S., organizes lectures about foreign (deaf) cultures by foreign deaf people, and I was asked to hold one about Holland (JP). I had no idea how to hold a lecture in front of 40-50 people, and what to actually talk about. Luckily, someone else got to talk about his country, Malaysia. So on May 31st, I went to his lecture (JP) to see what it was like. It was an interesting lecture, and the guy did a very good job by interacting a lot with the crowd. It became a lesson for me on a different area.

During that lecture I took notes as to what to talk about, how I can relate those things to Japan, and how to get the crowd involved in the lecture. My friend had pinpointed my lecture on June 13th, so I got only 2 weeks of preparation time. I thought it would turn out alright during the weekends, but I got also a bit busy during the weekends, so I ended up making long days of looking for information and putting the presentation together. I went to S.'s company twice to discuss the flow of the presentation, and to learn about tips and tricks from them.

Then, on Saturday the 13th of June, I went to S.'s company first to get some things done, and we went together to the Tokyo Center of Welfare for Disabled people (東京都障害者福祉会館, Toukyouto Shougaisha Fukushi Kaikan), where the lecture was going to be held. We prepared the room, the projector, the chairs, etc, and the first attendees came in. The lecture started at 18.30 and ended at 19.30. I talked about Holland, the country, the food and the deaf culture in Holland. This included deaf schools, sign language, welfare centers, deaf clubs, and the Handtheater, a theater group of deaf people in Holland. Then, after a little break, I talked about Japan - Holland history, which was actually the theme of the lecture.

It was a bad start of the year, with the economic depression and me not having a job. I have been busy looking for work, at first through recruitment agencies and online job advertisement sites like GaijinPot and CareerCross. I noticed the job market had really shrunk, compared to when I came to Japan in 2008. Most jobs that recruitment agencies had to offer, required native Japanese, and there were too few companies which set up direct hire advertisements. Let me explain: advertisements on such job sites are often placed by recruitment agencies looking for people to fill in the positions they have been asked to fill by their customers, i.e. other companies. But in a few cases, companies themselves place advertisements on those sites for direct-hire, which means the job application process does not go through a recruitment agency or another third-party company, which has my preference after having dealt with a lot of recruitment agencies.

I have also been in the application process at Google, and got as far as the second interview. However, Google was very slow in getting on with the process, that I had to look for something else in the meanwhile. In the end, they told me they did not have a suitable position for me at the moment... Great.

Anyway, a friend recommended me to go to Hello Work - officially called Kousei Roudoushou Shokugyou Anteikyoku (JP) (厚生労働省職業安定局, Employment Bureau of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare), or generally Shokuan for short - a governmental organisation in Japan that helps people find jobs. There was a special section for disabled people, and I was helped by a very nice lady who also knows a little bit of Japanese sign language. She gave me a lot of advice, introduced me to the Life and Labour Support Center for Disabled People (Shougaisha Shuurou Seikatsu Shien Center, 障害者就労・生活支援センター) and helped me in speeding up the process of getting a Disability Card (障害者手帳 (JP)).

Words of the day:
鍋 (nabe) - saucepan, pot
じゃんけん (janken) - rock-paper-scissors
つまみ (tsumami) - side dishes, snacks for drinking

We are going back into the past, a few months. When I came back to Japan, S. was planning to hold a nabe party with his friends and I was invited too, right the day after I came back to Japan. Of course I am well into this kind of eating and drinking parties, so yes, I was in!

A little jet-lagged, I woke up at 5 in the afternoon and helped S. a bit with the preparations. Then we went to Takadanobaba to meet with a friend of his. When we got back to the house, a group of 3 girls were waiting for us. We went in, and after a bit M., a friend of S., arrived. T., another friend of S., was still doing his dance practices, and would be coming a bit later.

Words of the day:
あけましておめでとう (akemashite omedetou) - Happy New Year
年賀状 (nengajou) - New Year cards
お節 (osechi) - New Year's dish
初詣 (hatsumoude) - First shrine visit of the New Year
年越しそば (toshikoshi soba) - Year-crossing soba

Another year has passed. Happy new year, folks! Or あけましておめでとう、今年もよろしく！ "Akemashite omedetou, kotoshi mo yoroshiku!" as you would hear in Japan. (Happy new year, and let's be friendly too this year! to translate freely...)

It is the year of the cow, so many, many Japanese new year cards (年賀状, nengajou) feature at least a cow, and the stalls at the temples on the first days of the new year are selling cow caricatures, cow dolls, cow stuff.