Opportunity Knocks

A few weeks ago, I went to a friend's house to help her with a cooking class for Japanese families. Cooking classes are apparently a big thing for women on base. Japanese women want to know what Americans cook, and how to do it, and they'll pay to see it first hand. This class was created by a group called the Japanese & American Friendly Circle, or JAFCO for short, which hopes to encourage friendly encounters between Japanese and Americans (as the title implies) and help kids get started on their English for school. The leader of JAFCO, a Japanese guy named Mike (no, really), was there and found out that I have the English degree and teach and what not, and expressed interest in hiring me as a teacher. I figured I could use a little more work, so he said he'd call me and we'd work out the details.
So a few days later, Mike called and asked if I could join him and another leader of JAFCO for dinner. We made arrangements, and I spent a few days being tickled by the fact that they were going to take me out to dinner to interview me for a part time teaching position. It's so not the kind of treatment I'd get in America. The dinner interview turned out to be an interview for one of two jobs. One was the part time job I expected, the other was full time!
The job will involve teaching very laid back and basic English classes in the afternoons for students and their parents (or grandparents). One class a week might be in my house, the rest will be at a classroom that JAFCO has rented and is in the process of decorating. If there is an interest, a few adult classes might be worked in eventually. In addition to teaching, I will also be responsible for coordinating among the American teachers to find out what's working and so on, which is pretty exciting. I would never get the chance to be a "department head" in the States at this point in my carreer, so I was really excited about the leadership opportunity. PLUS, Mike would like me to help design the curriculum for the classes! They have the first two months worked out, but they'll clearly need more, and they were looking for someone to work on it. My masters is in curriculum design (in part) so I'm totally psyched about the chance to actually try out the stuff I'm learning. And once we move back to the States, the opportunities to actually design a curriculum from the ground up will be few and far between.
So, to make a long story much shorter, I've officially taken the job as of today. I'll still be able to teach at the junior college and also my private class at my house, and I'll still be working on the masters, so I'm about to be crazy busy, but I'm so excited.
In other news, I woke up to snow on the mountains surround Sasebo this morning. It was wet, but not frozen, around the house. Since it didn't snow last year this time, I'm assuming that we're having an especially cold spring this year. Also, all the cars in Sasebo have recently gotten covered in yellow dusty stuff. I assumed that no one was washing their car because of the water shortage in town. (The water reserves are at 65% and holding this month. If they drop below like 50ish, they'll start having water hours.) I learned today that actually the yellow stuff is Mongolian sand that blows in this time every year. I don't know why I didn't notice it last year, but I thought it was interesting.