Thoughts by D: 9 months in Japan

Hi guys! It’s been a while~ I’m back!

So, tomorrow will be 9 months since I came to Japan in June 2018. I’m not sure if it’s because of ageing or it’s because of the visibility of time passing by with each season, but time really passed by SO fast. And I’m now in the middle of a painful process of dealing with visa all over again, lol. But since it’s renewal, it’s much simpler or so I hope.

I decided to drop an update because interestingly, one of my current colleague actually turned out to be a reader here and he was really surprised when he realised I am D. Well, I’m even more surprised, lol. I’m really glad what I’m writing seemed to be giving people a better preparation for their move to Japan, be it via Gaba or not.

Right now, I’m in the midst of renewing my visa. It’s been pretty easy so far, it seems like I just have to provide proof of my tax and insurance payment and it’ll all depend on my monthly income since my arrival in Japan. Basically, I need to be earning at least 250,000 JPY a month on average. Next step will involve submission of all documents (prepared by Gaba for me) to the immigration office and apparently, there’ll be a temporary visa that I can hold on to until the visa application outcome is confirmed. From submission to confirmation, it can take up to 6 weeks. I’ll update again once everything is over, but for now, I’m really at the preliminary stage so this is all the info I have.

GJH and I moved to our new home and now, we actually have a living room! It’s been pretty exciting so far because I actually get to walk more than 10 steps to get to the toilet now, haha. Plus, our neighbourhood is really convenient and vibrant! I love the malls. Unfortunately, we found out yesterday that the Donki in our neighbourhood is closing down end of this month. Dammit. Later on, I’ll go take a walk in the park downstairs (yes, there’s actually a pretty huge park with a pond) and check out the area. 😀 The weather is turning warmer this week (averaging around 5 – 15C) and flowers are blooming here and there. It’s my first spring in Japan and I’m really excited to visit some nice parks in April!

Thankfully, I have no hay fever. Japanese seems to get it alot and some clients of mine even told me about the logic of ‘tolerance level’. Like how some of them only start getting hay fever when they are older because they have hit the threshold for the amount of pollen their body can take in a lifetime, haha. I’m not sure if it’s true, but it seems valid enough! >.<

Today is a day off for me and I actually have adjusted my schedule to enjoy 3 day-offs in a week. In case you are curious, I teach around 160 lessons a month, 40 lessons a week, so I work around 9 hours a day with 1.5 hours break on average. To give you an idea, this is one of my typical week this month:

Blue/Yellow: Booked lessons Grey: Unbooked slots

It is tiring but I’d rather cut down one day of work because with this plan, I save a day’s worth of transport, which costs me… ~S$8. And usually while teaching, time flies! So 12 lessons a day is tiring at the end, but definitely doable because at this point, I know the textbook and clients much better. And of course, as you can see, there are times when lessons are not booked. So, I get to rest too. Downside is that of course, I’m not paid when I don’t teach, haha.

I’m not sure what else I should write, so I’m gonna end it here. Let me know in the comments if you want to know about anything else!

Til then,
D.

 

 

10 Comments

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *