More Forms???

It is now my second day of “work” here in Japan. So far things have been different than I expected to say the least. For the most part, everything is progressing as well as can be expected, that is, if I will ever be done with filling out forms.

My boss, Dr. Noda, has been nice enough to join me in the form-filling dance over the past two days. He is a busy person with a lot of important engagements coming up later this month, so I greatly appreciate his generosity with his time. We had to make numerous trips, including one to my accommodation, to go over all of the paperwork there (Dr. Noda was required to sign the forms there on my behalf). My “apartment” is small but definitely sufficient. I won’t be baking muffins or hosting a dinner party any time soon, but I can’t complain for roughly $100 (that is 10,000 yen) per month. We also had to go to the municipal office where I had to do alien registration – yes, I am now an alien. Forms had to be filled out and sent to the funding agency, JSPS (Japanese Society for Promotion of Science), and more forms at the university for identification and library cards.

By the end of day one of form completion I was feeling a bit wiped out and our last stop was at the small ecology library to get the forms I need to fill out if I want to request books or sign out journals. This was when things got a bit more comical (or my brain was getting so tired of it all that anything would have been funny). I could hardly keep it together while I was listening to (but not understand a word from) the librarian who had a funny twitch and was wearing those hideous oversized glasses that all of the older men here wear. He yammered on and on waving his library loan request form around while he did. The best part of it all was that I was trying to look very interested and trying not to bust up because he was missing the glass out of one half of his glasses and his bad eye (the one on the side where glass still remained) was twitching away. By Dr. Noda’s body language, it was clear that this guy didn’t really have any purpose at the university but his silly forms made him feel important.

Today we went to the bank and got an account set up, then went to the store to get a cell phone. When we bought our house and had to fill out all of the legal forms for our mortgage and insurance, there was far less paperwork involved than there was associated with buying a cell phone here in Japan. It was a 2 hour ordeal and in the end, the clerk was still unable to tell me what the cost would be to receive international calls. And to insult to injury, out of the 4 manuals that came with the phone, there isn’t one word in there in English! For the first time I really felt like I was loosing my mind and I think that my frustration was evident, although it did nothing to speed the process along.

For a place that is such a technologically slick society, they sure know how to slow processes down with bureaucracy. I am growing very tired of the paper pushing and the next task for me to do is to re-apply (using 5 different forms) for housing that will have room for both Shawn and I (the room that I am in now hardly has room for me and my two pieces of luggage). I think that I will put that off until tomorrow. Time now to finally get a look at the data that I will have to work with, yeah!