In Japan

This is my first post since arriving in Japan. Wow.

I never contacted back the company I mentioned in my previous post, because a different company contacted me (both are recruitment agencies) and was very active in looking for a job for me.

I now have a job, and I start tomorrow. Thank you God for bringing me so far!

As I suspected, I've begun to learn "adult things" while living here in Japan which I wouldn't necessarily have known while living here as a kid.

First of all is that Canadian drivers license holders don't need to take a written or road test to get a Japanese license, but Americans do. Hehehe. So when I have enough money for the fees, I can get myself a Japanese license! (And when Tamara has a residents' visa, she can too!)

The other thing is that unlike Canada, you must pay into your pension here even if you don't have a job. As for health insurance though, in BC you need to be in BCMSP, but in Japan you can either be in "Citizen's Health Insurance" or "Worker's Health Insurance", depending on if you're working or not.

The third is that there is no extra fee for using your credit card overseas (with RBC at least). You get the same rates as if you were exchanging cash at an RBC branch. Good deal =).

Oh yes and fourthly sending a regular letter from Japan to Canada (110 yen - about $1.33) is cheaper than sending from Canada to Japan ($1.90 - about 157 yen). Woot!

So... that's all for now. I'll try to let you know what work is like at a future post without breaching my NDA hehe.

Job Update

I recently applied for a job and got my first interview offer! And then I got a follow up email from the same recruitment agency coming from an old high school friend!

They won't interview me until I show up in Japan in person, but my friend has put in a good word for me so I am very encouraged. I decided to stop applying for jobs for now since I have an interview lined up with a recruitment company which has many job opportunities at their fingertips.

I'll focus on moving now and restart focusing on job hunting once I get to Japan.

Thanks all for your prayers and support! Please keep praying that Tamara gets her spouse visa fast! Then we can go!

1 More Month till Japan!

So here's what's been up since my last update. Tamara is still on the alternate list for the JET program, but we've started to just move forward regardless of the JET program, assuming it's not going to happen. So here are the "big things" in our lives of late.

Thank You Cards

It's been over 2 months since our wedding and we haven't gotten our thank you cards out yet to everybody who has given gifts. How disgraceful! It's one of those things which are easy to put off I guess. They are mostly written out we just have to finish them and post them all. Our goal is to do that this week. So if you gave us a gift, heads up!!

Tamara's Visa Application

Boy, there was so much involved with that. We finally got all the paperwork to my parents this week, who submitted it to the Japanese immigration office on Monday. We're really hoping that Tamara well get her visa by September, but there's no way of telling when they will finish. So please pray!

David's Job

I've been looking for a job in Japan through different job search sites but I'm getting a lot of no's back. I'm hoping it's because I'm not in Japan at the moment and that it will be easier once I get to Japan. I just have to keep giving it back to God and find peace in the fact that he's in control and will provide for our needs.

Our House

We had the amazing blessing of having friends offer a house for us to rent in Tokyo at a very economical rate, but recently they found rot in the walls which calls for repairs. This puts a financial burden on them and a strain on the offer.

We have had two housing offers here in Canada this summer which were taken back at the last minute, and this is starting to look like the third in an unfortunate theme. The bright side is that if this is an attack of the enemy, then we're doing something right =). Please pray that God will overcome our obstacles and fulfill our need for a place to live, however he might have that work. Pray specifically for my parents too who are kindly negotiating in person on my behalf with the owners.

The major theme here obviously is Japan =). Tamara says I'm starting to think and talk more in a Japanese mindset than a Canadian mindset now. I must be excited. Woohoo!!

What does Paul mean?

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25, NIV)

So my question is, what does Paul mean by "just as Christ... gave himself up for [the church]"? Is he talking about when Christ died on the cross? But the church didn't exist at that time... What does Paul mean by Church then?

Google It

When somebody asks you how to do something, it is good practice to encourage them to take their query to Google. Don't just feed them, teach them how to fish so that they can survive on their own. Have we started sending people to Google too much though?

I think so.

Recently when I've been Googling things, I've noticed a trend.... this solution has started creeping into the top search results "Try Googling it". These responses are usually on forums where somebody asks a question, and somebody else tells them to Google it.

As much as I'm sure the responders are sending the questioners to Google in good faith, little do they know that their "Try Googling it" is going to end up being the top result on Google....

Now this may be Google's fault for picking this page as the top search result, or perhaps mine for not reading further down the forum for better solutions. I still think though that people should start thinking a little first about whether it's an appropriate place or time to suggest that the query should be taken to Google.

Imagine how many people will get trapped in the infinite recursion... =P

Married

So since I last wrote I graduated and got married, which is a pretty big deal. Our honeymoon was in England, which as unconventional as it was, was a TERRIFIC honeymoon.

The plan now is to move to Japan, but we're back in Canada now. Why are we in Canada? Well originally we thought we had to be back for Tamara's Grandpa's 80'th birthday party, but they moved it to right after the wedding. By then we had already booked the tickets. We may have had other reasons too but that was the main reason.

We had a place to stay over the summer lined up too, but that fell through right before the wedding, so we looked for and found another place, but that fell through during the honeymoon. Right now we're at Tamara's parents' place looking for jobs and a place to stay in Japan.

Tomorrow we will be house sitting for a week for friends from Tamara's church. That will be nice to have time alone together for a week. Today we dropped by Old Navy where Tamara used to work, and it looks like they will take her back over the summer starting next week. That will be nice to have the income, since though we are blessed with having no rent for the moment, student loan repayment is ever looming, and we need to fund our trip to Japan, which will hopefully occur around September.

We have two weddings for friends we're booked to attend as well, which is exciting. Congratulations to Nate and Maja as well as Jenna and Julio! Just like us they are moving on to foreign countries which are home to one of the couple (Denmark and Peru, respectively). We must have started a trend!

Another thing going on in the background is Tamara's JET application. She applied to teach English in Japan, and was accepted but put on the alternate list. This means she's qualified but is on a waiting list until positions become available. This is a little odd since our family has friends in the JET program who are aware of job openings right now. But who knows how the system works... At least we know of friends who have been accepted after waiting for a while as an alternate.

So if the JET program accepts her, then they take care of her VISA, the living arrangements and rent etc. which is really nice. If not, well we want to go to Japan anyways so we'll have to figure that out on our own. Right now we're doing all the tedious work required in that process but are hoping that the JET program will work out. Please pray that God's will will be done either way.

Well I'm writing this blog post because I was getting sick of writing my resume for a job in Japan. I'll get back to that tomorrow I think. I think I'll go hang out with Tamara now and maybe watch a movie. Toodles!

Camcorder Review: Insignia NS-DV720P

So I bought the Insignia NS-DV720P, and the short story is I'm happy with it. All I wanted was something which I could easily use and do the basics, and I got even more than that for a really good bargain.

Insignia is basically a no-name brand by BestBuy. You can buy this camera at BestBuy for $129 CAD, but I bought it at Future Shop (owned by BestBuy) for $99 CAD.

Here are some specs and features:

• It can record in HD (720p), SD wide, SD, and QVGA.
• Saves in both AVI and MOV
  
• Takes 5 megapixel pictures
• 3" screen
• Has sockets for composite, HDMI, USB and and SD card.
• Uses a Lithium battery
• Has about 100MB of internal memory.
  
• Came with USB cable, HDMI cable, composite cable, and battery (but no external memory), strap and felt bag/case. I bought a separate bag and 16GB of memory.
  
• Has a light
• user interface defaults to simple mode, which can be turned off to show more advanced features. Very intuitive

Overall it's a lightweight, and easy to use camera with very high quality. Here are the only downers I've experienced:

• When trying to delete videos, If you start playing the video, then the delete button turns into the button to turn the sound down. If you play the video and decide you want to delete it, you have to stop the video, exit the view videos mode, go back into the view videos mode, and then delete it. Well I haven't pored over the whole manual but I've tried everything =P
• When saving in AVI, windows and mac can't open it. I tried Ubuntu and it works just fine. Apparently it uses a code called ITU H.264. Quick research made that codec seem pretty standard but hrm... An easy out for now for me is to record in MOV if I intend to watch it on windows or mac. Of course if I upload it straight to YouTube or Facebook, AVI works just fine.
• I tried using the camera with iMovie 08, but it didn't get recognized as a camera. I guess the operating system only recognizes it as external memory, and not as a camera. Well it's cheap, so I'm not really complaining I guess, just observing.
  

Anyways I've never done a product review before, but I had a lot of thoughts so I thought I'd jot them down. If you're thinking of getting a basic camcorder, I'd highly recommend this one. Remember, get it from Future Shop, it's cheaper =)

Not Enough

I don't have time for anything!!

1. Thesis
2. Linear Algebra
3. Discrete Math II
4. Data Structures & Algorithms
5. Pop Music in the 20th Century
6. Advanced Weight Training
7. Spartan Athletics Event Staff
8. Web Development and Online Course Support
9. Advanced Digital Recording Teaching Assistant

The first 6 are my classes, and I need those to graduate! The last 3 are jobs, and I need money to a certain degree (especially since I'm getting married), but each one of those jobs needs me a lot too! =(

The only thing I can feasibly save is money, in my transit to school. I pay $5.50 in bridge tolls per day plus however much in gas. I could take the bus and save a ton of money. However, that takes MORE TIME! And if I don't sleep, I can't keep going. I really need my sleep. But I don't have enough time.

"Why are you blogging then?", you might ask. Good question, good point. I have a midterm tomorrow. I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

The Lecture is Dead

Well, not really. It needs to be taken out of the classroom though. Lectures are commonly seen as the staple of University education. It is a sure-fire way to make sure that teaching is happening. Can you be sure that learning is happening though? Is there a better way of doing this education thing?

Well since lectures came along, video and audio recording technologies have been invented. Why not record the lecture and let students access it so that they can listen to lectures on their own time? Then students can pause the lecture at any point and even review segments of it to make sure that they have mastered a concept. Futhermore, class time can be used for questions, feedback, and interaction - yes, a tutorial. If things were done this way, then instructors would be much more involved and aware of the learning process going on with their students.

Why do you think most Universities don't do this? Is it because it just hasn't occurred to them? Are they too lazy? Are lectures too sacred? Or is my suggestion just plain flawed?