Pigeonholed

In my last job I was an Adult Services Librarian in a large library systems. I worked in the central library where cross-training and mixing of departments was not done. The people at the circulation desk never watched the reference desk, the children's librarians never ventured off of their floor, and the only time the adult reference librarians visited another department, it was probably to borrow their color printer. And that's just between the public service departments. Interaction between them and technical services was even more problematic, unless you were a II or a department head. I believe there were over 100 people working at the central when I was there, and although I could recognize a great many of them, I couldn't name them all. Many I only knew through email and never saw face to face too.

I worked in one of the smaller branches for a few months as well, and it was nothing like central. Everyone knew each other, by face and name, and helping out in each others departments was a lot easier because there was only one or two people in each group. Having the adult reference librarian "in charge" happened more often as well because they were next in line in the hierarchy. So when the manager had to leave, it was usually the adult reference librarian who ran the library until the manager came back.

So all I did was Adult Reference. I did programs, worked on committees, created staff genre training classes, and had a few other non-public related duties; but, the majority of my time was assisting adults on the reference desk, or over the telephone, or by email. Now that I am looking for another job, it seems like that experience isn't enough. A lot of jobs I'm seeing want supervisory experience. Have I been in charge of other people? Yes. Many times. Was it in an official capacity? No, because that's what the volunteer services department was for, or the reference manager, or whoever had the "I'm in charge" phone that day. The same goes with working with vendors and budgets. Another department handled that. I was just a librarian.

Five Weeks

That's all the time we have left in Kan'onji, five weeks.

Has it almost been a year already? It seems so. I'm not ready to think about packing and moving yet. Yes, I am a bit homesick and want to go back to the States, but at the same time, there's still stuff that I would like to do here. We haven't made it to Kyoto yet, or the Naruto whirlpool. I have yet to experience an onsen (pregnant ladies aren't allowed, and neither are kids under six years old) or kabuki or karaoke. We have also wanted to explore Kobe with some friends of ours. We've been trying to get together almost since we arrived. It still hasn't happened yet either.

And we don't have a job to go back to, which is kind of scary. I've been looking since September too, when half of Mark's co-workers had to leave Japan because of visa problems and we thought the school was going to financially crash and burn. Mark's been looking since December. There is a Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) job that he may be up for near Osaka, and if we were going to stay, it would be for an ALT because they work in the public school system and have normal 8-5 hours and weekends off. So there is that possibility, but we're not sure how much of a possibility it is. Either way, it still means moving.

Immigration Update

We have a date for Emma's hearing. February 14th. Great day for a hearing, eh?

Mark's boss will be coming with us, so we will have an interpreter with us this time. Cross your fingers that all goes well.

Song of Ice and Fire

There haven't been many series that I've been able to keep up with since moving to Japan. Luckily, my Texas library has allowed me access to ebooks and downloadable audiobooks. If I didn't have these, I'd probably be reading more classics, since they are public domain and I get them at sites like Project Gutenberg. But because my library card is still good, I've been able to read George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, also known as A Game of Thrones. I'd been wanting to read the series before HBO adapted it. It was one of those things on the "to read" list that I could never quite get to. I'm not sure when it first aired on TV, but I started reading A Game of Thrones (book 1) shortly after Emma was born. I just finished A Dance with Dragons (book 5). This is a series that will surprise you. I've thought many times that I knew where the action was headed and how the plot would resolve itself, only to have all my expectations go awry by some new plot twist, usually in the form of a character death. If you don't like your protagonists to die, don't read this series. Like Joss Whedon, George R. R. Martin is not afraid to kill off popular characters. No one is safe from his pen. Martin has changed my mind about characters too. Those that I started off hating, I'm now liking. Some that I thought would be integral to plot have faded into the background. Maybe they'll come back later, maybe they'll stay scenery, I don't know. That's one of the things I'm loving about this series. I can't predict it. And its why when book 6 comes out next year (cross your fingers) I'm immediately going to get my name on the check out list. (If I bought #6, I'd have to buy all the rest, and right now baby food, clothes, and plane tickets are a higher priority.)

. . . and then we were deported.

No, we haven't been deported, but it seemed like we were going to be for a little while.

What Happened:

Right before Christmas, Mark got a phone call from the Immigration office in Takamatsu. He had no idea what they wanted because the person who called didn't speak English and Mark couldn't figure out what he was saying with his limited Japanese. So Mark's boss contacts them and they tell her that there's a new procedure that we need to go through for Emma. They say that we just need to go down to their office with some documents so they can update their files, or something like that. They there's no rush on it, take on your time. So we do. We have a lot of little day trips planned for after Christmas and New Year's, so we figure we'll stop by on our way somewhere else.

We made it to the Immigration office on the last day of Mark's vacation. But things are not what we expected when we arrive. Instead of waiting in the nice, bright main Immigration office, we're sent to wait in a dark, gloomy corridor by an electronically locked door. There's another family there, so we don't feel that anything is wrong. An immigration officer takes our documents to make photocopies and when he comes back, he leads us to a cold vacant room, with only a table and a couple of chairs in it. We still think things are okay, until he pulls out the "Flowchart for Deportation Procedures."

Wait, what?

Yep. The real reason they wanted us to come in was to inform us that Emma has overstayed her visa and they are starting an investigation against her.

When babies are born to foreigners in Japan, they automatically get a two month visa (which we didn't know)and Emma's expired in August (which we didn't know). We should have gotten her a new one then (which we also didn't know)but we didn't. We weren't able to get all her US documents until September, and you've got to have a passport before you can have a visa. Besides, we spent a lot of time at the city office in Kanonji making sure she had all her documents in order. They told us she was fine, that she didn't need anything else, and we believed them.

Oh, and the officer who is telling us all this, doesn't speak enough English to explain what is going on. The only fluent English speaking officer is out at the airport manning the customs desk. So we've got this guy trying to get us to sign a bunch of forms (all in Japanese) who can't tell us what they're for, and all we know is that its about deportation and Emma.

I had visions of being escorted to a bus with her and made to get on a plane that evening. But, after a few phone calls to Mark's boss, we learned that she was not being deported, only that she is being "investigated". My six and a half month old is being investigated by the Japanese government.

This is only the start of the craziness. We have to go back in about a month for a hearing. They didn't have a date for us, but they will let us know when they schedule it.

We may be able to drag this process out until our contract ends in March, or if we get a new job in the states, we could leave early and avoid it all together. I can't help thinking that this could have been avoided if they had just sent a note in the mail or something. They know she was born. They know what sort of documents she needs and by when. Couldn't that have come in a welcome packet? A sort of "congratulations on being born, here's what you need to stay legal" thing? I would have found that more useful then all the nursing they gave me.

Bananas

We started Emma on solids this week with bananas, and she loves them. She reaches for the spoon and open her mouth wide and makes an excited hmmming noise when eating. When she discovered that the bananas actually came from a bowl instead of a spoon, she dove for the bowl.

She was a little cranky at dinner tonight because she didn't get a good afternoon nap, so whenever I took the spoon away to refill it, she would cry. So the evenings sounds went something like this: humm, mmmm, mmm, AAAAAHHHH!!!, AAAHH - hummmm, mmm, AAHHH, mmmmmm.

Eventually the crying won out, and not even bananas could console her. Laughing at my child is probably not the best thing a parent can do, but it was just so funny. Here she is with banana mush all over her face, arms out wide searching for the spoon, and alternating frown-y face with pure joy. And if you've ever seen her frown-y face, then you know how hilarious this was. If Mark were home, I would have had him take a picture.

New Toy

For my birthday, my mother-in-law gave me a book of knit patterns for wild animals. I finished one animal, the hippo, about a week ago. It ended up being a little bit larger then I expected.

But Emma seems to like it. She especially enjoys sucking on its ears.