God Is Listening

A couple of much needed boosts.

Several have posted supportive comments to my thread, “Wrapping Up”. Thank you all for these, greatly appreciated. They mean a lot, more than I can express.

However, the fact remains that those I care for the most, those I have given so much up for, are throwing me out like trash. A while back, a reader comment told me to remain confident. This person, I suspect, has a similar experience as I or is close to one who has for this has been a massive blow to my confidence. Not just with the gender of the preexwife, which is huge and why the 3 lovely teens chatting me up after Sunday’s matsuri was such a boost, but in all aspects of life.

I may regret sharing the following, but am compelled to. I ask that you refrain from asking questions in public, as it is likely I will not be able to answer them and leaving them unanswered will probably lead to incorrect conclusions. Or, if you have any, ask privately and if I think I can answer them publicly, I will.

In addition to teaching med students, nursing students, vocational school students, corporate students and private students, I teach maids at a maid cafe in Akihabara. Please do not ask which one. I have no interest in maid cafes and they know it, and tease me over this fact. However, I AM interested in my clients/students being the best they can be at whatever endeavor they undertake. I do not know how these girls and young ladies are/were in their high school or college English classes, but as a whole, they are my best students. They ask questions, a rarity with Japanese high school and college students, are very active in class and most always working on their class work in class and not talking in their native language about other things. I suspect it is due to several points, one, they are being paid to attend the class. Another is that they immediately get to use what they learn in class. The more popular they are, the more money they can earn, which provides another financial incentive.

I started with them 8 years ago, with a long break for the panic. Until Spring last year, I had not been visiting as a customer but have many times since. Besides wanting souvenirs, photos of my students in their uniforms, as it became apparent that my time in Japan would soon draw to a close, I did so to support my students, the maids get paid some of the cost customers pay for the photos they buy of them, and mainly, to hopefully recruit more students as I would soon be needing a lot more income and be free of family imposed limits on my availability. After several months of fruitless efforts, some of the maids I met when talking to my past and present students began signing up for the course, including one who I first taught 7 years ago. She is now a Premium Maid and is taking a biweekly private lesson with me.

Unfortunately, out of the hundreds of maids I have taught, most no longer work as maids and I have already got pics of or with most of my students who work the days I work in the area. There is a list of those still working that I have not been able to meet while they are on shift that I have been wanting to. Yesterday, Tuesday, was an uncommon chance for me to see who of those might be working on this day of the week.

As I went through the App showing who was currently on shift, it was looking like I would decide not to stop by as all those on shift I had already met one or more times. While there are those I would like to meet more, I do not want to give this fact away and refrain from meeting the same maids over and over again. Then I saw one of the maids I did want to get a photo of but had not been able to and I decided to stop by the floor she was working. Usually, I try to choose the floor with the largest number of students working, but as stated earlier, most of these I already had photos of. This particular maid I had not seen since she graduated 10 months ago and was one I wanted to support and see again. She was the only one working at that time at that cafe that was a student.

They were very busy and had many foreign tourists dinning. I placed my order for coffee and a photo of my former student, whom I had not been able to locate in the hustle and bustle. A few minutes later, I see movement, fast, in my general direction and it was my former student. She saw and recognized me and rushed over. Not uncommon, but not all my former students are this enthusiastic to see me again. She told me how happy she was to see me after so long and told me of her promotion to full maid and how the classes I taught helped her serve English speaking guests. MUCH needed boost. After congratulationing her, I told her that I had placed an order for a photo of her, she literally flew over to the order screen, bust out into and even bigger smile and came back to my table to say “Thank You!”. We chatted a bit more before she had to see other customers.

Many of my coworkers are insanely jealous of me for teaching maids. Others are only slightly less so for my other female only classes, including med and nursing students. I truly do not understand why. As I tell them, it is like being a kid in a candy store with no money; all that delicious looking candy that you cannot get to taste. Still, the discrepancy between this stunningly beautiful woman happy to see me to that of my wife who can barely stand my presence in the same house as she was a needed boost. An even bigger boost was the conversation we had. She thanked me and I her for her attention.

Today I had another. An employee, MD, of the medical school caught me in the hall and asked if I were me. When I confirmed I was, she told me that she was my private student 21 years ago and was now working at the same school hospital! She thanked me for my lessons all those years ago and shook my hand. Sadly, we both had to get back to our individual tasks but will meet again on campus.

Two greatly needed boosts. I hope I can soar on these for a while. Been in dumps of late.