My first week

Just finished up my first week of executive search. It was mostly training and I haven't made a single phone call yet, so it's hard to say what my impression is. People kept on telling me what the job is like and how it changes after a few months. It's curious that the impression they give me isn't exactly positive, but that people seem to like working at this company. I'm sure it will all make sense in a while.

My area of specialty is pharmaceuticals. The word "specialty" is misleading because I don't actually know anything about pharmaceuticals. I am lead to believe, however, that this is not an issue. Most people begin their jobs with minimal industry knowledge. I'm lucky, though, because there's a pharmaceutical exhibit coming up that I'm attending. Three days of educational goodness... in Japanese!

Speaking of Japanese, my ability to read and write kanji is coming along alright. I can't say the same for my speaking ability. It seems self-defeating even to me that I'd learn Japanese in this manner, studying the written language before the spoken one. It's a lot easier for me to study something when I have some tangible, visible evidence in front of me that I'm actually learning something. When I speak the words comes out then they're gone forever. Besides, the real Asian way of learning language is by learning to read and write it. I figure, when in Rome...

So yeah, if you know any bilingual people in the pharmaceutical industry who want to come to Japan, just send them my way...