First Impressions are Important

But first impressions are also just a starting point. I hope.

Met Tej Rana, my (Nepalese?) manager who seemed rather disappointed with my Japanese skills. Right now there's not a lot of work to do around here, so I was supposed to be an assistant guide for their "fun kayak", which seems to be a guided kayaking gig geared toward (high school?) students. Unfortunately, in order to deal with customers, my Japanese has to get a helluvalot better...maybe in a week I'll be able to do cool things like that? I hope so. I just know that I've got to keep these notes short and try not to use too much English--the more Japanese I study, the better my experience here. If we're happy with my performance at the end of my stay, I can stay on, though I'll have to live in an attic-space. Also, if my Japanese were better and I had a month, I could've trained to be a rafting guide! How awesome would that have been!? I'll have to try to make it back to SAS sometime in the future...

Anyway, this morning I went in and they scanned my passport and WWOOF card and all that jazz and set me up to start work. I helped them move a bunch of mountain bikes and then move carpet (to recarpet one of the rooms here) and folded a bunch of plastic seat covers for the bus. After that we had a bit of a lunch break. About one I walked back from Australia House (where I'm staying) to the SAS office to meet Tej. Our meeting involved the lovely discussion mentioned above, but I generally have a pretty good feeling about this place. The afternoon had me vacuuming for a couple of hours and--horror of horrors--cleaning their bathrooms!

I don't know if I mentioned it, but they had me clean the bathroom once in France, and thereafter never again. Apparently, I have no bathroom-cleaning skills. Still, they seemed okay with my job there, though the place wasn't very dirty to begin with.

I'm going to try to go to dinner with Ashley tonight, so I'll cut this short for now. Maybe another update this evening with the France finale included?

Later!