Working in Tokyo.

All of a sudden, life has become ridiculously overwhelming. Currently, I'm trying to balance my life with a new job, managing a side job, reading for class (or rather, making a poor attempt to), exercising (or rather, thinking about it), and trying to finish my independent research project from last semester. The ironic thing is, even though I'm ridiculously overwhelmed, I actually have a lot more motivation to get things done than I did prior to this week. Apparently I'm a sick, sick person.

I'm assuming that a lot of the above information is new information to you, which means I have a lot of updates!

First! I got an internship :-) I cannot even tell you how relieved I am. I was getting pretty worried for a while, since the internship was a HUGE part of the reason I decided to come here. I started on Monday, and was supposed to work everyday, but it's going to change to 3 times a week from next week which is PERFECT. It's with a Japanese law firm, which is also PERFECT because I figure I would utilize and improve upon my Japanese the most this way. A few of the attorneys took me to lunch today, and I got an assignment reviewing a contract in Japanese and English, as well as a project looking over and verifying damages for a med mal case. So yeah, exciting stuff!!! The firm is in Kasumigaseki, which is a nice business area, about 15 minutes from my train station! Lunch time is interesting because they have a few places that sell bento boxes for cheap on the third floor of the building. Ahh, the conveniences of Japan :-)

Second! My side job. So, my side job is teaching private English lessons. Actually, it's not even a "lesson" because all I do is get paid to have a conversation in English with my student. I'm using this website called FindStudents.net, and I have gotten TONS of requests. Although, I've only had one lesson so far, so I guess the number of requests is not necessarily indicative of how many lessons I actually teach. Anyway, for this website, you set up a teacher profile and students find you and request to have you teach them. You can set up your own rates as well as meeting places to teach. My friend back at home told me about the site, and he said that he charged 3000 yen for 1 hour, so I figured I would do the same. I mean, he charged that when he was still in undergrad, so I figure I would maybe have the competitive edge because I am in law school charging the same amount. Right? Anyway, last week I had my first lesson with a doctor in Shinjuku, and it was a great experience. We talked for about an hour at a cafe near the train station (thank you for all of my friends who stayed with me at the station to make sure he was not a creeper!!!), he paid for my ginger ale, he paid me my first lesson fee of 2000 yen, and on top of that he gave me an extra 1000 yen because Shinjuku is a far commute from where I live. Sweet deal right??? I'm currently in the process of setting a few more lessons up with other students, so we shall see how that goes.

As for other updates, they are school related, and therefore, not exciting. Back to my independent research project!!