October 12th 2012 - Day 36

Finally a bit of spice to the week, just in time.

Although the day started with the norm, i.e. Japanese practice, it wasn't an awful practice, just going over the stuff I'd done before and correcting the mistakes. Thanks to doing Japanese practice all week and learning some of the proper uses of certain particles, my sempai said that my work was now 'almost goo'.....'sarcastic woo'. And once again I had lunch with a couple of new people, although I wasn't able to fully enjoy it this time.

Why you ask? Because I had less than 50 minutes before I had to be in a Naiteishiki meeting. Time for a Japan/life lesson - when people pass through the job application process and receive a job offer, they are called Naiteisha. This doesn't translate exactly but effectively it is people who have an offer to start working for a company at the start of the new working year (April) but can't start now due to other circumstances (mostly still being at University). However Naiteisha are still able to keep looking for a better job during this time, and its not uncommon for people to give the offer back later. Those people who do intend to work with the company then attend the Naiteishiki, which is basically a day at the office involving meeting the other people who start same time, doing a brief ceremony and then doing a bit of group work to get to know each other.

Now because of various reasons (namely the fact I'm english and got offered my Job thanks to a video on youtube) I started working for my Company two weeks ago. But since I am technically part of the new crop of workers, I had to attend this Naiteishiki too. Which was actually really good: I met the six new people starting in April, got to take part in the small ceremony they had to basically say 'welcome and thanks for not dropping the offer', and got a certificate to stick onto my wall. Plus, after the ceremony I had to got back to work and miss out of the group stuff. How sweet is that?

The rest of the afternoon I was on my own again doing, thats right you guessed it, more Japanese practice. But towards the end of the day I got to do a bit of website designing which was fun and informative. The only downside of the day was that work have been asking me to keep a Japanese diary on my computer. I had spent an hour writing todays entry and it was perfect, the best I'd ever done and I was so confident in it. Then I lent on a button, deleted the whole post and saved over before I could stop it.......F*%^*W$^&!@£%!!!!!!!!!!!

Now sometimes companies have an extra additive for Naiteishiki - namely a drinks party in the evening. Which is what happened. We went to a darts bar around the corner from the office, had some drinks, I got to chat to the new people more and get all their phone numbers, and we played some darts with other sempai from the office. Plus I got to show off by looking 'proper gentlemanly and British' during the darts game. Waistcoat and pocket watch, for the Win!