hey all,
Today I actually received a position offer in Tokyo from my current employer. It is part time, like they said before, but I'll be working at 5 different elementary schools, with "transportation fees" included in my salary, not on top of it. So basically, I run around to a bunch of different schools, racking up high transportation fees, paying higher rent, etc. Despite being able to live considerably closer to Michi, this does not sound like a very good offer. I'll be working a total of 140 days a year, at around my current daily pay, which works out to about $700 less per month than what I make right now, almost $1000 less if you factor in my part time job. (Adding up to about an $11,500 pay cut for the whole year.)
In order to achieve my current pay, I'd need to fill about another 100 work days through well-paid private lessons, another part-time job at an eikaiwa (English conversation school: basically the McDonald's of education, offering short, pre-prepared fast lessons in English that may be harmful to your health), or some combination of the two.
I should emphasize the fill part, and the well-paid part. Private English lesson rates are much lower in Tokyo, because there are so many foreigners, and competition drives the price down. On the other hand, there seems to be no shortage of demand for said lessons, so filling the extra days shouldn't be incredibly difficult, but it would probably take quite a bit of coordination and no small amount of hustle and bustle to keep everything straight.
Well, I've got a lot to think about.
Cheers,
