The Big Interview

I had my big interview today. I had hoped for something a little more interesting. For example, some of the questions on the pre-interview cheat sheet dealt with my view of work, and what I find particularly disturbing in the news lately. In the end though, the interviewer focused on the same questions that I am sick to death of answering for every new Japanese person I meet... Why did I come to Japan? What surprises me about Japan? What Japanese food do I like? What food do I have trouble digesting?

I don't blame her. After all, she is doing her job. She is writing for her market. I think what I should have answered when she asked me about my impression of Japanese students (what kind of frikkin' open ended question is that? How can I ever answer something that specific?) anyway, I should have answered that Japanese students (the ones who read this magazine) spend too much brain power and time trying to find out what food I like, and not enough developing their own ideas and opinions.

Getting back to the questions... since the magazine is about careers, I assumed that the main questions would be regarding work... incidentally, this is where my major interest lies today. What is work... to me? What do I want to be?

I am not sure she understood my answer, about what I feel the relationship between employee and company is... I told her that the way I see it, I am Kevin Inc., basically a freelancer whose client at this particular moment is T-Mark. The relationship between myself and my client is one in which I offer my services and in return (besides money) I am able to gain knowledge and experience from the client... the opportunity to grow myself and do something interesting and new. The main goal is to increase my own value... to build my own brand.

Maybe that answer is just plain boring, or maybe it was so darn clear that she saw no need to dwell on it any longer that a quick "ahhh... Give and take. How about food? Is there any Japanese food you can't eat?"

Despite all my complaining, it was not a bad experience. The interviewer seemed interesting. She had just left her own company 3 months earlier for her freelance job. I would have like to have more time to talk about how that was with her. (of course she may find that boring and would rather discuss what food she likes). I got my photo taken in the park for everlasting fame in the pages of whatever magazine it was, and it ended with a little envelope with 100 bucks inside. Not bad for 45 minutes.

I was able to get up at 6:30 today. Halfway to the goal of 5:00. I found that it is much easier to jog in the morning than it is when I get home from work. One I think that is that I find running (alone) extremely boring now. It is the last thing I want to do when I get home from work at 7 or 8 tired, hungry and pissed off about something someone did at the office. It is still boring to run anything longer than 30 minutes in the morning, but at least I feel that I have the whole day left to do something enjoyable, as opposed to spending one of the last waking hours on it.

Running on the hash last week with Jon was fun though. A little competition, a challenging pace... I could handle that everyday if I had someone to run with.

A friend sent me this link (as a joke I think) but it turns out to be extremely interesting. It is the personal web-site of a woman who used to be a man. The site starts at a period just before she underwent the knife, and it continues on describing her experiences and what life is like for her as a transsexual. She describes in pretty good detail the surgery (facial) and the two weeks following when she went from a bloody mess to actually quite attractive. There are also daily pictures for two weeks after her surgery.