Phil-San, Salary Man

I began work on a Saturday which, along with Sunday, are the busiest days of the week. Every lesson is pretty much full. As I’ve come to learn, almost no NOVA instructors have the weekends off. There’s about nine of us on the weekend and only four or five during the week. During the weekdays, it is very quiet, although it picks up in the evenings.

I arrived at Musashi-Kosugi, and found my way through the needlessly large disability-unfriendly train station; there are four huge sets of stairs between the Toyoko Line platform and the North Exit, which is where my branch is located.

NOVA is spread out on three floors. The ground floor is the reception where four Japanese women work (one of which is beautiful, but they are all lovely). I’ve heard horror stories about the mean staff at other branches, but Kosugi is known for amazing staff, so lucky me. The fourth floor holds the VOICE room (see the next blog entry) and the Kids and Business class rooms. The Kids room constantly plays instrumental Disney music. Not that fun after a while, but at least I’m not kids-trained yet.

The fifth floor is where the majority of lessons are held. A huge room with 16 cubicles, each with a kidney shaped table, which make for interesting seating plans. The walls are all see-through so although you have private lessons, it is still relaxed and slightly exposed. In the back far corner is the staff room; which has solid walls.

I met many of the instructors, who seem nice. I’ll talk more about them soon, when I’ve had a chance to meet them properly, and the same for the Japanese staff. I was shown around by the guy in charge, who was from Britain. In fact, compared to the lack of English teachers at Ebisu, most of the instructors here are English. It’s pretty cool.

My lessons all went fine. No problems.

And now that work has begun, I add two new mini-series to my current list (Random Observations, Misconceptions, and Image Of The Week):

NOVA Students Say The Stupidest Things
NOVA Students Say The Sweetest Things

Stay tuned!