The Philippines I like the Philippines. As I mentioned in the previous notebook entry, I stayed there for about 6 months to study English. I met a lot of people there, all of them are very friendly. Still now, I like to go there whenever I have spare time for that. But I read an article from some magazine about the Philippines. Since the president of the Philippines was replaced with the guy who I forgot the name of him, his most priority of political measure is to kill drug dealers. I do understand that a drug, especially the most dangerous drug that have been flourishing around in the Philippines called Shabu, needs to be eliminated. But how he organizes policemen doesn't make me understand. To put it simply, You can get paid if you kill a drug dealer. based on that policy, he already killed more than 3000 people so far, and the number is growing. I assume that some people of that number was killed accidentally or in a way that they didn't necessarily need to be killed. Killing people who get involved in drug business isn't the only way to solve this issue. Maybe I just don't know what really happens there, what really deeply drug issue is. But one thing for sure, I am now scared of going to the Philippines. You can't deny the possibility to get involved in the drug business or incident. On the other hand, there is certainly this kind of opinion that innovators do and act unprecedented things that ordinary people wouldn't do, even come up with which more or less make sense. So the conclusion is that maybe this might be a good way for them to be a better country. There might be happy ending by doing this which no one has ever imagined except for the president of the Philippines. I hope one day I can go visit my Philippino friends without any concerns like that.

Do you know a `Gaishi kei` company? A gaishi key company means a company owned by non-Japanese or established outside of Japan, or their head quarter is located outside of Japan. I have been working for that kind of company in Japan for a year. before that, I was in the Philippines and Australia for 2 years in total. The reason why I am working for the company is that I expected when I joined that it would be English environment. I thought It might have been hard environment with foreign bosses and the situation that I needed to use second language all the time. But it wasn't actually what I expected. My bosses are certainly foreigners, but they are also fluent in Japanese. Basically we communicate each other in English, but even if I stumble over some words and don't bother using Japanese, they understand it because they have been here in Japan more than 10 years so sometimes it becomes mixed language. I have been relying on this situation for a pretty long time. To be honest, I already realized a few month after I joined that I also needed to brush up my English by myself otherwise there would be no improvement. Then after several months, I finally started something to improve my English and that something is Skype lesson with my friend. It was very good timing that she opened her own online English school a few month ago. Today was third time of the lesson but I am already disappointed myself how much I forgot what I learned in the Philippines and Australia, also how hard to keep your English improving, or even maintaining if you are in Japan. I understand that everybody knows what need to do to improve your second language, keep doing your dairy task diligently day by day. In order to do so, controlling your motivation is very important factor. There are certainly things that demotivate you, and I am kind of person who would follow the dairy unstable feelings. Some goals you want to achieve need to be put ahead in your way. I think I am getting good feeling recently, the feeling that I need to improve my English for my future sake. I will also take advantage of my current working environment. If you have some good ideas to keep or get yourself motivated when you're not in the mood of studying, please share it with me. That would so much helpful.

Dear diary Hi there. It's been a long time. I use this every time I write a notebook. You can tell from the frequency of my notebook how lazy I am. Today, I'm going to write about my job, which is why I suddenly started trying to keep writing this. (Hopefully everyday) Before that, let me briefly explain about my job. The company I work for is recruiting company and part of my job is to pick up jobs from our clients then introduce some candidates from our database to them. When I usually pick up jobs, I use Japanese even when it comes to from some international companies because their offices are located to Japan so most of their HR people are Japanese. But today, I had to have a phone conference with British woman who is in the U.K and I was supposed to discuss the detail of their job. I am 100% sure that she was disappointed with my English and this is the reason behind this sudden notebook. Actually a half of us are foreigners so there are a lot of time to speak English. But when it comes to business conversation, I couldn't do well and I have to admit that I have been slacking off studying English. The reason why I work for the current company is because I want to be fluent in English and expand my chance of career globally. I'm making a commitment by declaring here that I am going to write something everyday before going to bed. Thank you for reading. I'd be more appreciated if you could correct this. See you tomorrow!

Alcohol tragic Since there is a box on the right side of this page filled with some tips when you have no idea to write about, I'm going to tell you about a funny story that happened a few weeks ago. As I posted about the job I got, there was a ceremony for us, new employees, a few weeks ago in Tokyo. I still clearly remember that the date was 7th in this month, and since I live in Hyogo, I had to arrive in Tokyo the day before the ceremony day which was 6th Sunday. So on Saturday, some friends of mine got together to celebrate me for getting the new job. As you might already know, it's not bad to be celebrated, actually it's very good. When it comes to this situation, I tend to push myself to drink more because even though they might be busy, they made their time to do it for me. This thought usually makes me drink more than the point I could hold. I did drink a lot and there was a female friend who had always been around me making good mood, which was great atmosphere to drink even more, plus I ran into a friend of mine who used to be my colleague when I had been working for the nightclub in Osaka. FYI, this guy is crazy as hell. He's older than me and endlessly buy me a shot of tequila, endlessly.. THAT was the last point I can recall. The next moment was, I woke up in a police station with some scars on the left side of my face having horrible hangover... according to cops, I was like walking unstably on the street alone, screaming and fell down the stairs, which explained the scars on my face.. I even had a key of locker contained by my bag pac and the female friend's bag. She didn't take her phone and money out of her bag when we put them in the locker so she had been looking for me but of course couldn't find, then paid 3000yen to open the locker. When I called her to ask what happened, she was very upset.. And with terrible hangover, I went to Tokyo. On the ceremony day, literally each one of people in the company asked me about how to get the scars on my face. On my first day of the company... I'm telling you it was very embarrassing. Thanks to this tragic incident, people in the company somehow already know how hard drinker I am despite the fact that we haven't gone drinking yet. But I need to be more mature to behave appropriately. You might want to be careful in spite of great rare situation that makes you very happy, if you don't want to follow in the footsteps of me.

How's your Silver week so far?? For those who don't know about Silver week, there is a long holiday this year in Japan called "Silver week" that is 5 days long. I don't think we have this holiday every year. I assume some existing holiday coincidentally gathered together for some reason and it became 5 days long. Since there is already Golden week in May, people started calling it Silver week as a second long holiday. How's my Silver week so far? I couldn't be lazier. Since I recently got the job, as I mentioned previous post, it had been pretty tough by learning new things and trying hard to get the hang of what I need to do. In response to those things, I've been very lazy for the last 4days. I didn't even post anything on this site to practice, as you can see. I'm pretty sure I was born as a lazy person, I love sleeping. Going to bed without setting alarm is one go the most comfortable things to do. Then the next thing I knew, I slept for 12 hours. I have a confession to make, this happened at least twice during this holiday. Actually I did nothing but drinking with friends. I am 100% sure that my boss and colleagues are going to ask me how the holiday was. Maybe I might be going to trump up something. So how's your Silver week so far? I hope you are making the most of this holiday to improve your second language unlike me haha.

September2 Yesterday I wrote about September with three negative reasons. No wonder it didn't get any correction and comments. Today I'm going to write about it with three good reasons. As I mentioned yesterday, there are much more than three reasons but I whittled it down to three. The first reason is that it's my birthday month, of course. No one hates being celebrated and given some present. Just for your information, my birthday is the same day as the tragic accident happened by terrorist so whenever I turn on the TV they talk about it, which I feel something very hard to be described. The second one is that it's time for new iPhone. My current smart phone is iPhone5 that hasn't been working well and sometimes drop calls all of sudden. So I have been waiting for this season to buy new one! The last one might be tricky because it doesn't happen every year and that is long holiday so-called Silver week in Japan. From this coming Saturday to next Wednesday, 5 days off in a row. Since my new job is getting tougher in terms of what I have to do during the probation term, this long holiday is kind of lifesaver as if an oasis in the desert. It was very hard to narrow down to three out of many, such as autumn color, the best temperature for doing anything and no mosquitos. It would be very helpful to gain some perspective if you could let me know why you also like September. Thanks!

September Every year, September make me feel sad. There are three reasons why. The first reason is because it's the month after summer. There is no way to avoid the feeling that summer has just ended unless you go to another country that has hot weather all year. Unfortunately I am not allowed to take such a long holiday. It would be awesome if I could go wherever and whenever I want. This is a different topic for another day. The second one is that my birthday is September. This means right after summer finished, I get older. Funnily enough, I've been becoming numb to this these years. When I was young, I couldn't resist the temptation that I HAVE TO enjoy the summer like everyone else do. After all, people are getting older physically and mentally. Finally, it's because it goes to show that the year is going to end and it's becoming winter. Of all seasons, winter is a time I spend a lot of money. Basically you need to wear more clothes than summer time, which means you might be tempted a lot if you are interested in fashion. Plus there are events such as Christmas, New years and new year party, end year party and New year's holiday. If you plan to do some travel, holiday season make it more expensive. So there are three reasons why September makes me sad. Of course I'm not pessimistic person, though it sounds like I am haha, there are lords of enjoyable things in this season that I wouldn't even be able to write all down. On the flip side of the coin, those three things above are something I really look forward to. I would like you to tell me what kind of emotion you guys feel in this season.

New job As I mentioned the previous post, I got a new job owned by British company which is so-called "Gaishikei". It's been just four days since it started but astonishing things happened a lot already. From last Monday to yesterday, I went to Tokyo office to get training and today was my first day in Osaka office. Just for your information, in terms of size, Tokyo office is much bigger than Osaka's, like 200 employees versus 20 employees. This is one of the things I was surprised because it goes to show that Tokyo is much more competitive than Osaka. On top of that, I had 13 co-workers who joined the company at the same time (it's called "Douki" in Japanese) and there are only 3 Japanese including me. Other than us, they are native English speaker and believe it or not, other two Japanese are also very fluent in English. As the training went by, I was panicking because every single training was explained in English even when the trainer was Japanese. I was desperate to keep pace with them and couldn't afford to ask some question or saying your opinion while others were doing, which would be making me look passive. The reason behind the situation is the difference of our culture I assume. The western people were encouraged to express themselves in public when they were kids while what we used to do when we were kids were like just listening the teacher's lecture. However, it doesn't mean you don't have to do that, actually I had to so I tried to say something as many times as possible. Still, this kind of environment doesn't change in Osaka as well,of course. The training goes with English and there are plenty of things I have to learn by heart for the position. I guess this is the point where I need to make it clear that I'm not saying I hate this environment, actually it's the opposite. I need this and this is what I have been long for. It's very challenging and rewarding in terms of both English and job. there are also targets I need to hit constantly so it's time to work really hard. When I get used to this environment, I firmly believe that that would be a time when I become fluent so it's worth trying. Wish me luck!

Job-hunting I have been job-hunting for more than 2 months and finally I got a job today. Today was the day for a final round of my first choice company. There were actually several companies in progress but after considering about each aspects of each company, today's company became my first choice. While I was waiting for the result, I thought my life is dependent on that moment. And incredibly they said yes. I never spent as much time as I did this time for job-hunting. My main role of the company is related to English and communication with people, which is pretty exciting. However, I can feel that things are accelerating to change my lifestyle and environment. I'm a little bit nervous about that. Besides, the company is classified in the field where I never have experienced so I should be open-minded to absorb anything. That is also one of the factors of my nervousness. Anyway, the next chapter is about to start. As one of my mentors said, "It's not about choosing a successful way, it's about making the way you chose successful." Wish me luck!