Interview with me

[Peter Ahlstrom]

There's an interview with me up over at Precocious Curmudgeon about my time at TOKYOPOP.

[Sigyn]

This is fun, Peter. Any ideas yet on what to do next?

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Right now I'm freelance copyediting a nonfiction WWII spy mission book. It's definitely different.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Well, that kind of sucks. I guess it's not all bad, if you've read the details about Tokyopop's "contest". I'm glad to see you're still inside your field. Great interview too.

[Tink]

I think you should try to get a job at Google. That place looks like a great place to work. I would try for it myself if I could convince my husband to move to California.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Google turned me down already, despite my brother-in-law.

[Miyabi]

:0  I find this very interesting.

I'm majoring in computer software development and linguistics and was planning on teaching English in Japan for a couple of years.  I was thinking of going with the JET program. 

Who did you go through?

[Peter Ahlstrom]

The Kake Educational Institute, which owns Okayama University of Science (in Japan, it's not uncommon for a single company to own multiple universities), had a very limited program with Wright State University where they took 2 teachers every 6 months. They may have since moved their partnership to another university.

[Miyabi]

Yes, I knew that companies owned universities.  Hmmm.  I'll have to look into that though.  Than you.

[Spriggan]

Though you can't do wrong with JET, it's one of the better programs to go through.  The apartments are much nicer and the pay is better then what you get from a private company, I saw and talked through a lot of people teaching English when I was in Japan and the happiest people were those going through JET.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

JET also rejects a sizeable percentage of their applicants. There's a lot of competition for spots.

[Miyabi]

JET also rejects a sizeable percentage of their applicants. There's a lot of competition for spots.

Yeah, I've heard that before.  I also heard though that they try and get people from a wide variety of majors, so like it's harder for people with majors like education, linguistics, and Asian cultures because there are a lot of those that apply.