Well yesterday was my first day of working at my actual branch in Kongo and it was very uneventful due to the fact that we don't have any actual students at this point. There were three other teachers there, out of eight total, and after some general cleaning of the branch we spent the next six hours just reading books and magazines as we tried to kill time. However its good to just finally be working again and having something to do during the long winter days.

The other teachers seem nice and the only unfortunate aspect is that the head teacher at my branch is a huge ass kisser. This is pretty common among a good portion of teachers who have worked for Nova for any long period of time as for them this is their career, not just a way to live in Japan for a few years. This guy has been working for Nova for 14 years and has only advanced one step above me in the corporate ladder which shows a serious lack of ability on his part. Sadly this hasn't stopped him from acting like our job requires the utmost dedication and effort in order to please our Japanese masters. However I'm not really too concerned as he doesn't hold any power over me except to be annoying and after living with my sisters I can certainly deal with that. Just kidding girls!

Also at this point I am contemplating of quitting Nova in May to be able to come home for a couple of friends weddings and just see friends and family in America for a month or so. Since Ayuko is moving to Tokyo in May as well it would give her some time to get settled before I would move there and start looking for another job. The reason I would quit Nova is that we can't take any sort of leave of absence and the new company screwed us over as far as paid holidays went as well, so after my whole experience with Nova I understandably have no loyalty. Especially considering the new company has already defaulted on a great deal of promises they have made as well. Ah the life of a corporate drone! Of course I am also looking into going back to graduate school for business, so who knows.

Either way I got paid a small advance from Nova today so I won't be starving in the streets and overall I'm really happy to be working again in general. Also not sure if I've mentioned this before, but since all of this financial hoopla has happened I've decided to be much more focused on my finances and save the great majority of my paychecks. My current goal is to have at least ten thousand dollars saved by March/April including both savings and the back pay I will receive from the government. I plan to mark this as my retirement fund/emergency fund and pay into it as much as I can from now on. Sadly this makes me feel like a real adult...