Category: General

Pennies
Jyh Wei just informed me that I could change my pennies for vouchers at Sainsbury, Meadowhall.

Work
Jyh Wei also told me that Vietnamese noodles bar is hiring people. They’re paying 35 pounds to work from 1PM to 10:30PM including 2 hours break and free food and drinks. I tried applying today. Initially, they were reluctant to talk to me as I was speaking English to them. As soon as I speak Cantonese, everything seemed smooth. Unfortunately, they’re not hiring anymore. I explained to them that a friend of mine told me that the restaurant is hiring. They seemed puzzled and asked me whether do I have experience. Mmm, the only experience I have in a restaurant is when I worked as a dishwasher at a coffee shop when I was 12 years old. The lady who was interviewing me seemed pretty interested in hiring me (she kept on asking me questions) but due to my lack of experience, she repeated that they’re not hiring anymore. I gave them my number and told them to call me if they need me. I hope they’ll call.

Japan
I’ve always wanted to visit Japan. I want to experience their culture and lifestyle. And now, I’m thinking of teaching English in Japan after I graduate. It sounds like a good idea where I’ll be paid in Yen, be able to improve my Japanese, check out Japanese girls and so on. However, there are plenty of hurdles for me. Firstly, they need at least a degree from any western post secondary education in order to apply for a work visa. That sounds okay since I’ll be graduating from University of Sheffield.

2. What do I need to DO to get my Work Visa?
There are basically two ways to get a work Visa to teach in Japan:

a) The first option is to arrange employment from your home country. The Japanese employer will then handle the arrangements for you. The new teacher will send their ORIGINAL college degree to the Japanese employer who will, in turn, take it to the local Immigration Office in Japan. A Certificate of Eligibility will then be sent to the foreign recruit in her home country; she then presents (either in-person or by certified delivery) her Passport and this Certificate to the Japanese Embassy or Consulate in her home country. The Work Visa will be stamped in the new teacher’s Passport. This writer has undertaken this process twice and each time it has taken about four or five weeks to complete though I have been told by reputable sources that this period can be considerably shorter as well as somewhat longer.

b) The second option is to come to Japan on a Tourist Visa in order to search for employment. If a teacher secures a job offer while in Japan on a Tourist Visa, the new teacher MUST leave the country in order to secure a Work Visa. Most teachers go to Korea, as this is usually the cheapest and quickest option. Obviously, if one has a Working Holiday, Spouse, or Student Visa, there are other issues involved; this page is intended for teachers who are thinking about coming to teach in Japan full-time over a longer term. Coming to Japan to search for employment is obviously a much more expensive option than securing employment from abroad. Living in Japan as a “job-hunting” tourist can be a very expensive undertaking, and this writer would not come over here to look for a job with much less than 4-5,000 US dollars and a valid credit card, but, of course, there are others who’ve arrived in Japan with less. For more information, check out the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Online Visa Section

3. Where can I find the companies that recruit foreign teachers from abroad?
Like the answer given to the question above, there are basically two options concerning the TYPES of employers who hire English teachers from abroad.

a) The private language schools: The big three in this arena are AEON; GEOS; and NOVA though there is hundreds of smaller operations in Japan. These organizations are FOR-PROFIT businesses, and, as such, they operate from the same premise that literally millions of other businesses operate from: Decisions in these businesses are made with an eye on the bottom line, so if you decide to work in this arena, just be aware that the institutional culture will reflect the fact that these “schools” are, in fact, large for-profit Japanese corporations. This answer is in no means meant to criticize these organizations one way or another but hopes to inform young teachers about the reality of the EFL work environment in Japan.

b) The Japanese Public School System: This option also has a large player: The JET Program– though there are similar, smaller programs operated by individual cities and prefectures in Japan. When a teacher is accepted into the JET Program, she is assigned to work as an “Assistant English Teacher” in the Japanese Public School System. These teachers work the same schedules and at the same schools as Japanese teachers; therefore; one is placed within the education bureaucracy, which has its own set of unique issues that are different in kind from the “business-related” issues mentioned above. The JET Program recruits a large number of teachers, and I have been told that the lead-time is longer for JET than for the private language schools, but I cannot state this with certainty. JET teachers do observe national holidays as they work the school calendar. I have personally spoken with JET teachers who have been placed away from the urban centres, so this is a real possibility.

One of the possible ways to work in Japan is to apply to the Japanese Exchange and Teaching (JET) programme. The only problem is, JET doesn’t recruit people from Malaysia! One of the main prerequisite is that I must a citizen of the participating country.
I’ll decide this in details after I graduate from Bar school. I hope that Malaysia will join the JET programme. If it happens, aaah, /me daydreams.

Check out some old Sheffield pictures
http://www.sheffgen.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/photos/unerversityold.htm
http://www.sheffgen.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/sixties_pics/brookhill60s.htm

Rest of the pictures are here
http://www.sheffgen.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/photos/sheff_old.htm
– 10:50PM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIZMO aka MEL HAI

What a weird class. My tutor for Family Law seminar seems pretty weird. She’s reputed to be a very nice lecturer and she pays attention to international students a lot. She expressly stated in one of the lecture note, “ In the interest of fairness, we suggest that international students should be allowed to have first choice as to whether they wish to argue question 1 or question 2, and which issue in the question they would prefer to deal with”. Well, it sounds good to us but I personally think this is too much. I felt like I’m being treated as a second-class student and not treated as a normal University of Sheffield student. There were 4 Asians including me in my seminar today. She divided us equally into 4 other groups. And on each group, she expressly told everyone, “Hello, this is Leong (different name for different groups), ask him where is he from, and what is his background”. I felt so embarrassed. I felt that every question that my group member asked was made in pretence. The 3 other girls in my group asked me couple of questions but soon changed to another topic.

The Finland trip photos are up @ http://www.xes.cx/pics/finland
– 9:00PM

Oh my god, so, so tired! Muay Thai training was killer today. Our society organized grading classes at Wicker camp today. We had to gather at the tram stop to go there. The turnout was great, about 15 people.

This was the first time I’ve been to Wicker camp. It’s quite famous in Sheffield as it has few Muay Thai champions training there. The gym is located at some dodgy area. The reception area is painted with bright orange with loads of photos of Thai boxers and even the people who trained there. As for the training area, it’s much bigger than our usual training hall at Goodwin. There’s even a professional boxing ring.

We started off with some running exercise. We had to run one end to the other end, and then do skips, jumping jack, run on four etc alternatively for about 4 minutes. By then it has already worn me out, I could barely stand and soon I felt dizzy. I had to rest for few minutes as I felt like shit.

We continued with some technique moves and ended with gym exercise. I bet my muscles will ache like hell tomorrow.

I had to partner with a girl. She is from Essex studying English (after she told me that, I went on saying, “So, you’re from Essex and you’re studying English?”).

One of my mates from Greek told me about a festival they celebrate in Greece. He was saying something about Holy Communal, where it is different in Greece. They give out bread and wine together (not really sure how it works but it’s different than the normal one). The interesting thing is that the wine is much better than the normal one. It’s much sweeter. And since it’s holy, they won’t throw the remaining wine away hence they will drink it. And by the end of the day, we’ll have a happy bunch of drunken Greeks.

We headed to The Cavendish to drink. We chatted quite a lot and everyone seems so friendly. I ordered a snake bite black. The Essex girl told me that usually people drink it if they want to get pissed drunk. She was right, I felt tipsy after that drink.

I told them that Malaysians respect Europeans a lot. They seemed surprised. Simon thinks that English people are stupid. While the others seems to agree with him. To me, when I first came to Sheffield, I noticed that English people are very polite. Everything starts with a “Please” and ends with “Thank you”. Well, not exactly every Malaysian respects Europeans, obviously there are some xenophobic people in Malaysia.
– 11:30PM

I did my groceries shopping today. Jogged all the way to Somerfield to build my stamina up. I bought smoked salmon, cranberry juice (the exact food i ate in Finland), some can food and bread. Oh yeah, 9 rolls of toilet paper for 3 pounds (!@#! About RM18). It came out about 16 quid. Oh yeh, what an interesting daily log.

I hate it pennies. I’ve been trying to get rid of them. But they never seem to go away. I’ve been organizing them so that I could use them to shop but it seems that they kept coming back. Now I’m looking for a place to donate all my pennies obviously not the homeless fuckers of course, but to charity.
– 11:40PM

The blogging phenomenom is getting bigger and bigger. Even Jackie Chan blogs!

http://www.jackie-chan.com/

Check out his journal under the Shanghai Knights section.
– 11:59PM

Chuo Ming, Alex, Mindy, Wen Dee and I played basketball at King Edward’s School today. This was the first time the girls played basketball with us. Alex and I teamed up against Wen Dee, CM and Mindy. It was a good game even though Alex and I are not allowed to block or guard the girls. Furthermore, the girls can do whatever they wanted. It was a no rules game for them. They resorted into tactics such as grabbing Alex’s balls (literally).
– 11:46PMHere’s the better-than-Liz-Hurley girl. Too bad there’s only one, the others are still in my camera.

http://www.xes.cx/pics/sheffield-ballroom-dancing-competition-2003/
– 1:31PM

Alex was involved in the Ballroom dancing competition at Octogon Centre today. We went to cheer him.

Just like last year, the competition is between universities, namely Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, University of London, Bath and Imperial College. It has various dances such as jive, waltz, samba and cha-cha. The competition lasted from morning till 12AM.

It was really interesting as the dances and music were better this year. Last year was pretty dull due to the fact that they play the same song for more than 2 times. This year, they made the dancing time and music shorter.

Shane and I were bedazzled by one of the dancers from Bristol University. She has a perfectly voluptuous body with the face of the angel! We loved it when she dances. She smiles, frowns and made other beautiful face expressions when she dances. It was incredibly sexy! Better than Liz Hurley I say. I took plenty of her pictures. h0h0.

We headed home for dinner at 7PM and came back at 10PM. 182 (the number that was pinned on her partner) were the main reason why Shane and I headed back to the Octogan Centre.
Unfortunately, there weren’t many good-looking girls. Number 182 and couple of girls are worth looking at. However, the competition was great as the dancers performed gracefully. Well worth my 5 pounds (the entrance fee). Well danced.
– 3:00AM

Happy V day..

No dates for me but will be heading down to Manchester for a dinner with housemates.
– 6:30PM

Muay Thai Club is finally back! We had a little social at the Cavendish after dinner. Scotty was selling club hoodies and t-shirts. I got it for free, yay! Thanks Scotty.
Marcel bought me a snake bite black. Apparently Cavendish wasn’t allowed to sell them, she had to mix cider, beer and blackcurrant juice herself. No idea why.
Coincidentally, the England v Australia football match was on television. David Beckham said that they would play as serious as possible. He said even though it’s a friendly match, they will play like the Europeans qualifying. The match ended up with Australia 3 – England 1. What a disappointment.
– 11:50PM