Toil

It's been nearly a week, so let me tell you about JET orientation.

On Sunday afternoon I took the train down to King's Cross from Edinburgh, a numbness-inducing five hours. From there it was a good hour on the Piccadilly line towards Rayner's Lane, followed by a further twenty minutes on the shaky Metropolitan line to Uxbridge, out in the wilderness. From Uxbridge station it was a good twenty minute walk down to the south, plus that again of me walking back and forth trying to get into Forth Brunel University. The campus itself is very pretty, like a tiny city all off on its own. It had everything a nervous new employee could want.

Except... one thing. But we'll get back to that.

Anyway, I arrived at about 9pm, sweaty and tired and hungry, and checked in to one of the student dorms for my two nights. Though I was nervous about the prospect of finding food, I was delighted to find a small group of fellow new JETs in my exact position. Chips, pub, and a great evening of happy conversation.

Up the next morning at 7am for breakfast (courtesy of EJEF) and then down to work at the breakfast table filling in my visa form. Yes, yes, I should have done it sooner, but it was the same for so many. All you need is a few little addresses and passport details and your good to go. Unfortunately... there was one little thing that I couldn't just write down, and that was a passport-size photo. No problem, I said to myself, it's a University! Passport photos a-plenty!

Oh, how wrong I was.

There was one machine in the whole University, the WHOLE THING! It was in the library building. And it was out of order.

9am comes around and registration begins. After thirty minutes of waiting in line I get to the front, where the kind young man behind the desk informs me that without a photo they can't process my visa and, I put together in my brain, no visa means no job. And they ship those things off as soon as orientation officially begins... less than an hour's time.

I'll tell you now, this story has a happy ending.

So, panic-stricken and furious, I ran my way to the University bus stop on the edge of the campus. And, after waiting fifteen minutes for a bus that should arrive once every ten, I flagged down a taxi and was off to Uxbridge Station near which, my phone informed me, I would find the photo booths I sought. The drive was mercifully short, the driver taking some crazy back routes I didn't know were there, and when I arrived I made a dash for the shopping center. Phone web told me the best place to look was the WH Smith's in The Chimes, so that's where I went. Only it took me a few minutes before I discovered that The Chimes doesn't HAVE A WH SMITH!! Load of rubbish.

On my way out I passed a photo shop, one of those ones that develop your photos and all that. I wasn't sure if it was the right sort of place, but at least I could ask. And then all my fears drifted away as I passed by a small desk for customer use, at which three well-suited individuals were clearly at work sticking passport-sized photos onto visa forms. One turned round to me and asked 'Oh, are you on JET as well?'.

They had a taxi waiting, so after buying my photos and sticking them down (and stashing the rest in my wallet, may such an event never occur again) we hitched the taxi all the way back to Brunel, where we discovered that, with a good fifteen minutes left on the registration clock, we were home free. Registration over I practically danced my way out of the building to where my friends were waiting, rapping in my pride, told my story, bent down to re-tie my shoelaces and pulled the tongue right out of my shoe. Right out. Still haven't fixed that.

Compared to the rest of the two-say orientation, that was easily the most interesting thing that happened. I have all the flight details and information on Japan's education system written down, but I won't bore you with them. Rest assured, everything's in place. Even the Japanese language classes were a doddle, with your's truly getting placed into the top group from the start, and though having Kawai-sensei bearing down on every last mistake we made was truly exhausting. It was nice to know, though, that there'd be no formal testing done on our abilities, just real-world application that'd be the real test.

I made a lot of good friends at JET Orientation. It's clear we're all of the same mind, with the same goals and same ideals. We're all just as nervous, and just as excited, and I look forward to working with each one of you.

Train home on Tuesday afternoon, and then up next morning to greet Stephanie at the station. Since then the two of us haven't been doing anything very interesting. She's been on Portal 2 (beautiful, beautiful game) and I've been, y'know, writing this sorta thing, and together we've been watching a ton of movies and playing Dragon Quest 9. Don't take Seth Green's word for it, it's really good! Single-player, I'd imagine, would grow old kinda fast, but when teaming up with others, as we've done, it's unparalleled. Gorgeous game, that.

I'll sign off here. Thanks for reading.