Is 10:30 AM JST good for you?

I applied to the WinBe School in Japan at some point before August 20th. I think I submitted a resume through Gaijinpot, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I got an email on the 20th from someone at WinBe asking me when would be a good time to call for a quick chat on the phone. I told her any weekday between 2 and 6pm would be best. She wrote me back informing me that in Japan that's between 3 and 7am and their school wasn't open during those hours. Ah. I asked when the school WAS open. She said between 9:00pm and 6:30am, EST. I'm usually asleep by 9:30 now (the payoff is that I get to watch the sunrise), but I figured I could tough it out for one night. So I got an email from WinBe on Sunday night (Monday morning in Japan) telling me to expect a call on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning in Japan).

Not much to report really. The phone call went fine, much like the one with Geos did. The woman I spoke with obviously hadn't seen my resume. She wanted to know, in three adjectives, what my old students in Japan would say about me. I went with 'patient, dedicated, and kind' instead of 'sex-driven, alcoholic, and fueled by rage.' I thought using 'kind' was a good choice since most students I had in Japan described everything as 'kind' thanks to their limited vocabularies. She asked me to scan and forward her a letter of recommendation which isn't a problem. The earliest I can be in Japan through them is late November. It takes a minimum of 2 to 3 months to get my visa paperwork sorted out. When asked for a location preference (this school has branches throughout Japan and will probably look a lot like NOVA did) I gave southern Honshu or Kyushu as an answer. She told me that the only branch they were hiring for right now was Saitama and I told her Saitama sounded magical.


I don't know much about Saitama but it's a large city and about 45 minutes from Tokyo. It would put me closer to my old roommate David, who has returned to Japan and now works in Tochigi. The picture above is a view of Mt. Fuji from the area.

I don't know if this is going to lead to anything but unless Interac calls me back soon, it looks like my only serious lead.