As some of you may have realized by now, the global economy is not doing too well. In fact the economic meltdown that is dramatically affecting everyone in the world has pretty much washed away my business from underneath me. So... knowing that I need to start again, I decided it was time to let the Universe know in no uncertain terms that I NEED to and WANT to begin again fresh.
I linked to many business people and joined several groups on LinkedIn. I put my resume out on Monster.com (they just spam me now with IT jobs... no THANKS!) I also am looking around a bit here and there, but still don't really know what Microsoft used to ask, "Where do YOU want to go today?"
At the end of January I found a job posting at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo. It is a Consular assistant job and pretty much everything they are looking for I can do with my eyes closed. Only one glitch: they need someone proficient in French. Well... for any of you who were in the sciences in University and took an "honours" degree, you will know that there simply is no time for the fine arts. Which means, that even though I really DID want to continue French (since Canada is officially bilingual) I had absolutely no time. I came to Japan and Japanese became my second language, pushing any vestiges of French that still were there after six years of study, out my other ear.
If you wish to work as a Civil Servant for the Federal Government of Canada you need to have a proficiency in English AND French. It makes sense, considering Canada is officially bilingual.
I applied for the job anyway, and put my languages as English and Japanese (Fluent and Proficient), then submitted my resume with a great coverletter telling the truth about my skills, ability, knowledge. I didn't think anything would come of it. I forgot about it, actually.
The other day I got a call from the Embassy telling me they would like me to come in for a written test. I could choose Tokyo (too far, too expensive) or Nagoya so went for Nagoya. In the past three days I have been filling my brain with all of the political, economic, social news about Canada I could glean. And what I learned was that the econonomy there really is in as dire straits as the American economy. It was depressing.
So today I took my adventure to Nagoya. I left home at 9.30, caught a 10.37 train, arrived at 12.44, had some lunch, killed a bit of time, then went to the Consulate at 2.30 and waited for 3pm to arrive.
The receptionist took me to an office, and gave me a folder which had three pieces of paper in it. On each paper was a "situation" that I was asked to respond to. They were basically "emails" with inquiries from Canadians asking for various kinds of assistance.
The first question was in Eglish, and I was asked to reply in English. I had to think hard about this reply because I don't know the exact policies of the Embassy because I have never worked there! But I wrote my reply to the question.
The second question WAS IN FRENCH, and I was asked to REPLY IN FRENCH!!! I wrote at the top that "I do not speak French, but will reply in English" (because I was able to read and understand it). So I wrote a pretty good response (according to me) in English. That should give them a chuckle seeing as how I could read it, understand it, but not respond in the same language.
The third question WAS IN JAPANESE and I was asked to REPLY IN JAPANESE!! Well... I am fluent in spoken Japanese, and do all of my work here ON THE COMPUTER in Japanese no problem. BUT because I never really studied the kanji characters, I cannot write Japanese by hand. I just can't. I can read it, I can respond to it, but I cannot write it because my mind doesn't see the kanji in my head. I know that seems strange, but when you realize that Japanese has a newspaper level of over 2,000 kanji characters, if you don't practice them, you can't write them. For this one, I wrote (in English) that I am sorry but cannot hand write in Japanese because I use modern technology to do all of my written Japanese. I then did my very best to hand write in Japanese the response to the question. I used my dictionary a lot.
At 4pm I handed in my paper, and told the receptionist I would like to add my publication to the test answers for Human Resources to see... It was my way of giving myself a little extra "sales" because my application was only a cover letter, and a resume via email to the Embassy. (yes, I'm published with an article on Knowledge Management in a well-known journal for that field of business).
I left, went to Starbucks, killed some more time, caught a train back at 6pm, got to Fukui at 8pm, got my car out of the public parking garage, went grocery shopping, came home about 9.30, ate dinner and now here I am.
Honestly I'm not expecting anything from that because I don't speak French, but I gave it my best shot, had a good time getting ootnaboot, meeting totally different people, and doing something completely different!
That test was totally unexpected! I spent the past three days learning a LOT about the current economic situation in Canada, and all they wanted to do was test my language skills!
What a great adventure! I'll keep looking for other job opportunities of course, and I think that this opportunity has kind of sparked my desire to get off my ass and start being a bit more proactive regarding that. In these very unprecedented difficult economic times, a career change is going to be a very difficult challenge, but keeping my postive attitude, my love, appreciation, gratitude energy flowing out to the Universe, I know that it will come back to me magnified exactly how I need it, exactly when I need it to come.
Thank you, Universe!
I love you!
Cam
P.S. Yep... those are my very first pair of Chucks. Worn with my "suit" (blazer & slacks). And you know what I call that? STYLE. And being true to me.
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