Dartboard

I have a job interview!! Obviously you knew I wasn't going to stay a nanny (i.e. glorified babysitter and highly educated chauffeur) forever! And if you can understand the Japanese after my name, you know I'm going to be a teacher again!

I have a job interview at Berlitz to tutor students in Japanese, English and Spanish. Most immediately they want to hire someone who speaks Japanese, which is good because I can't remember a word of Spanish right now. I'm really hesitating because I'm not sure how fluent they are expecting, but I'll have an oral interview over the phone and we'll find out if I pass the test. I'm much more confident in my spoken Japanese than my written Japanese so thank goodness they highly value conversational skills!

Already I'm starting to think "...but can I really teach other people to speak Japanese? I'm not good enough!!!" And I think this because I have such little confidence. I'm still learning Japanese myself!! However I've made a new friend in Boston who is encouraging me to stop seeing myself as under-qualified for everything short of domestic jobs. He's kind of become a mentor in a week, and fate has dropped him out of the sky at just the right moment! Thank you M.A.!

Although I still need to pass the Japanese interview with some native speakers at Berlitz they have already asked me to work on Saturday... They want to train me in two short days (Thursday/Friday) and then perform an evaluation for some new students on the weekend. They sound really desperate--the timing couldn't be better!

I will only be teaching basic Japanese, and focusing mainly on conversations. One of the students the director mentioned is going to live in Japan in a few months and is looking to get some more practice before he leaves. Oh! The stories I could share with him!!

So I'm really excited. I was jumping and dancing ...and yes, even screaming when I got off the phone. I can't believe how easy it was! The interview is on Thursday so keep your fingers crossed for me!

If worse comes to worse I can always teach English and in 3 months I get free classes to advance my own language of choice!!

(-_-! ...meh. however you make those darn things look happy....

Opinions are funny things. People get so worked up about them, and feel so passionate about them. Opinions divide and alienate us, or unite us with a person or a group we don't necessarily want to be associated with. Once someone knows your opinion about a certain topic, you've involuntarily allowed them to put you on one side or the other. You can't even get away without not having a opinion because then you're judged for being either thoughtless, oblivious or indifferent. I don't usually care to escape the responsibilities of having an opinion, but sometimes (only sometimes) I wish not having one were a more viable option in this culture.

The irony this post comes after I spout a ton of my own opinions on Christianity!! Ha ha!

My head has been swarming with ideas and I want to share them. My major problems with Christianity are:

1a. the idea that God is a man.
1b. the visual of a long white bearded man.
1c. the fact that we can't get around calling God "he" because there is no better pronoun in the English language.
1d. calling God "she" is not an acceptable alternative.
1e. the fact that our language cannot accurately describe what Christians say should be the most important part of our lives.

2. the hypocrisy of people who call themselves Christians.

3a. evangelism
3b. evangelism by hypocrites.

4a. the idea that Jesus Christ was more than just a great prophet
4b. who was born from a virgin.
4c. who rose from the dead.

5. the fact that I have tried with all my heart to understand and talk to God and I never "felt" anything. That despite doing my best to open myself up, this God never showed itself to me.

There are plenty of other problems I have like the Adam and Eve story---sorry, I just can't find enough wool to cover my eyes to that little lie.

Prayer is essentially two things:
1. thanking God for something that happened in your life and
2. more commonly, asking God to give you something.

I much prefer the Buddhist way of meditating and clearing your mind to the Christian method of thanking and asking for things. I know that Christians actually do use the word meditation, as in "silent meditation," but I guess I don't believe that they ever really shut up. I enjoy conversations about religion, and I enjoy learning what other people think, but any relationship I have with my God is extremely personal and I don't really want to argue about it with others. My spirituality is neither right nor wrong. And neither is yours.

I agree that we should live by a code. And it's really hard to determine what that code might be unless we can tie it to a post of commonality. The Bible appears to be the perfect code, except it was written by (or perhaps through) humans and therefore has fallacy, so that too must not be taken for word for word. The Bible is an amazing historical document without a doubt, but almost no one takes the whole thing literally all the time, which opens the flood doors of interpretation, which is why even Christians can't agree with one another.

So those are a few of my problems with organized religion. I am neither an atheist nor nihilist. I am a spiritual person who wants to form her own thoughts about the meaning of life and the presence of a creator and ruler of the universe. I am willing to accept that some questions must remain unanswered, so is the nature of philosophy and religion. Nevertheless, I am not willing to stop searching.