Wendy in Japan

We had a seminar yesterday evening about how to get more customers. Our school is afterall a business. Our customers include: students, their parents, the people that support our everyday activities (in a round about way), and the managers (from the staff's perspective). I really like the woman who did the seminar. Her daughter is one of our students. She never fails to impress me. She's just so together and professional all the time! I was shocked yesterday to find out she's only 35 years old. Anyway, I digress. The main goal of yesterday was to tell us how to make our business (our school) more appealing. She explained that customers are always looking for just a little more, they want to be surprised. If you go to McDonald's (or any other fastfood place) and someone greets you at the door and shows you to a table then you'd be surprised, right? However, if you go to a fancy restaurant you expect that kind of treatment, right? We have to think of our school in ...

I decided last night that I was going to try to be positive today no matter what the day brought my way. Well I was tested right away this morning! I was making Koichi's bento (lunch box) and I'd already put in a half of a baked potato, a couple pieces of barbecue chicken and a few other freezer items that I'd heated up for him. I was about to put in some bread which I'd toasted when the bread burned my finger and I ended up knocking the bento box into the floor! Everything fell out and my eyes teared up. Koichi was of course an angel about it and helped me clean up and said he'd buy lunch today instead. I managed not to let it get me down! School was fine today. I'm trying to stay positive around the boss and not let her ruin my days. I'm hoping if I have a positive attitude it will rub off on her. I'll be able to keep it up until I see her overreact about something in an inappropriate way again. Hopefully that won't happen for awhile. I love the ...

Goal #1 My main goal this week is to stay positive at work no matter what! I can't let one person ruin my day just because they don't know how to interact with others well. Maybe I should tell her what my mom always tells me, "It's not what you say so much as how you say it!" Excellent advice I think! ( Photo cred ) Goal #2 Drink 2 liters of water at least 4 days this week. When I wasn't working I was doing so good on drinking my water everyday. Since I started working however it's gone down hill. I found some 1 liter bottles on sale recently and started buying them. I have a water bottle I bought last year, but Koichi has been using it for the last couple of months. I need to buy us another bottle so that I can have one too! ( Photo cred ) Goal #3 Cook dinner everynight this week! I think this will be an easy one since I don't have any plans for any evenings this week. Last week I was out three nights in a row which resulted in take out for Koic...

It seems like just a few minutes ago I was finishing work on Friday afternoon and beginning my weekend... now it's 9:30pm on Sunday night. Sometimes I wish I could work 2 days a week and be off the other 5 days. This was not a very good week at work. Actually, I shouldn't say that. Overall it wasn't too bad! However, one bad day can really put a damper on the rest of the week. And when that one bad day happens to be a Tuesday it can really affect your mood for the rest of the week. I won't go into too many details, but the woman in charge tends to overreact about what I and everyone else thinks are small things. Then she says she's acting that way because of pressure from the students' parents, which I'm not sure I entirely believe because in my mere 3 weeks working there I've caught her embellishing stories about kids a time or two. Anyway, as long as I don't have to deal with her too much I'm happy to be at work. The kids and my coworkers a...

I started my  new job on Monday, May 31. I feel like I need to get adjusted to the schedule already. I definitely feel better on days that I get some exercise in so it's my goal to have more days where I find time to fit it in! The job... I'm working at an English immersion kindergarten and for the most part I love it. The kids are amazing. They enroll as young as 18 months with no English at all and by the time they move on to elementary school at 6 years old they're pretty much fluent! The idea of the school is amazing in my opinion. Some of the execution of it however, not so much. I won't go into details because another one of my goals is to leave all the drama and bulls**t at the school everyday. I will say though, that I love the kids and my fellow employees! I've made some fast friends which makes going to work fun. I've got to get used to the schedule though and get my life back on routine. The past couple weeks I haven't gotten as much exercise...