After failing the Alpine interview, I know that I don’t have much time to be disappointed and all; I have to move on to the next step!
So without wasting time, I went to K. Sensei once again to ask for his recommendation to my next target: Daihatsu Motors located in Osaka. I already promised Tsubasa to try for a Daihatsu interview IF I flunked Alpine.
He immediately called the human resource department of the company, but I’m already out of luck: they have closed the opening because they have already filled up all the available positions for (future) fresh graduates.
So I kinda freaked out for a second, and then move on to do research on other available companies. Two went straight into my line of sights: Isuzu and TCM. Isuzu is a bus, jeep, big-ass-vehicles maker while TCM makes industrial vehicles.
Out of the two, I decided to go with TCM because they don’t have pre-exams in their interview process, unlike Isuzu. The other reason is because I think making industrial vehicles like HUGE tractors are way cooler than making buses.
I’m out of luck again. By the telephone call that K. Sensei made, they’re really skeptical about taking in a foreigner. Of course they don’t say that they don’t want foreigners, but you can just feel the vibe of not-welcome-ness to gaijins. After exchanging opinions with K. Sensei, both of us have agreed that TCM is not for me. I better find other Japanese companies that are more gaijin friendly.
So I went home with a bunch of lists of Japanese companies that has a more open policy to foreign workers. Man, it’s really hard to choose. Went home, and I got a FedEx document from Malaysia. I never got a FedEx before. Opened the documents and I was kinda surprised: it’s from P*r*d*a, the Daihatsu-backed Ma*a*sian car maker! And I was offered a job as an engineer!
I forgot. I still got Konica-Minolta and P*r*d*a as backup!
So I took a deep breath, and look at the lists more carefully. Then I have decided to try this plastic parts maker located in Kanagawa. The pay was quite good (210000yen), they have a manufacturing plant in Malaysia, and they’re very open to foreigners!
So the next day, I went to K. Sensei again, and asked him to write a recommendation letter. I posted all the necessary documents to the company (that I’m not going to say its name here, for a lot of reasons) yesterday, and all I gotta to do now is wait for an answer, and practice the SPI tests and do some math exercises.
I’m also busy doing the 外国文献 (gaikokubunken – foreign thesis?), translating English journal/thesis made by foreign researchers (I got the thesis from a team of researchers from Swiss) to Japanese. The original English thesis is already extremely hard to understand, how in the world would I be able to translate such mind-numbing journals into perfect Japanese?
Thank God I have the Japanese-English digital dictionary/translator Fujitsu’s ATLAS; the software really helped me a LOT. I only wished that the Swiss team would write their thesis using more grammatically correct English. Well, they’re not native English speakers, so I guess it cannot be helped.
I’m scheduled to present the translated thesis next week (2nd July). I’ve already finished translating; right now I’m doing the powerpoint slides and the presentation’s text-aide. I also have presentation practices to prepare. But most of all, I have to read the thesis over and over and over again, because I still don’t understand what kind of experiments the Swiss team has done and what are the benefits of their boring research. Not a slightest fucking idea. Nanoscale Friction Varied by Isotopic Shifting of Surface Vibrational Frequencies. What the fuck is that?
Changing topic.
Today I ate the 390yen shake bento from grandmart, again; accompanied with the new okinawa vitamin water drink and the oh so rich and creamy glico’s torori cream pudding. awesome.
footnote:
1) Alpine does not involve in any production of paper. Alpine makes audio-visual electronics for consumer cars, and also GPS-based navigational system. So, Syazi, Alpine nih bukan nya kilang buat kertas. Mahu pun kilang buat jagung bakar. Ataupon air soya.
2) Gaijin (外人) is an abbreviation of gaikokujin (外国人) which means foreigner; or an outsider. In recent times, the word has become regarded by some as exclusionary or derogatory and thus offensive; most japanese tv broadcasters avoided using this word and prompt to use the full ‘gaikokujin’ phrase instead. Common Japanese people though, would use this word widely to refer to foreigners, but only behind their backs. So if you’re not Japanese and a Japanese is calling you a ‘gaijin’, that means he/she have no respect for you and is verbally assaulting your sorry gaijin ass.
Eleven boxes full of my stuff from Akita to Kanagawa costs about 15000 yen.
Anyways, I have finished packing up and cleaning my old apartment; and that is all thanks to the full cooperation and swift work by my kohais, who spend their precious time to help me and Zarul tidy up the place.
The morning sun was brilliant.
My breakfast (and also lunch) in the shinkansen was a simple one.
Like always, my view is fixed to the window.
But I can’t really focus of the scenery because I have a book to finish:仕事の基本が身につく本 – this book teaches everything that I need to know about Japanese working culture.
I arrived at my new apartment (provided and fully supported by the company) impressed with the place. I thought it would be smaller.
The floor was quite cold though, but I can’t complain much because they provided the washing machine, shower room, toilet, air conditioner, intercom, kitchen etc all for free.
