i think i did really good in the daycare interview! they were really impressed by my japanese level (the lady said "you're so good at japanese!" three times - and she's the BOSS of the place), that i brought a resume in JP and ENG (she wasn't expecting me to bring a resume at all!), and was impressed that i had visited an elementary school that was like two streets down from the daycare. also saying "i already need to move out of the place i'm in now, so i'll move closer to the workplace if i get the job" seemed to make a good impression, as right before i said it the lady's tone of voice seemed to mean "if you live that far away i won't hire you".

online it said for interviews you need to wear a black suit/tie/shoes/bag and have a white shirt, i had a black suit with blue-white plaid shirt and no tie, my bag is blue and brown and my shoes were brown. at the end i asked if my clothes were okay and they laughed and said they were fine, which i take to mean "we weren't expecting you to wear nice clothes" so i'm really glad i didn't wear the white shirt! when they said "we'll contact you about if you get the job or not" i asked when the contact would be since i'd also applied for some other jobs, and they said "by next friday" and i said "that's fast!"...

i SHOULDN'T'VE worn any nice shoes because the walkway to the office was wooden planks on top of sand/dirt, which was at the time flooded and muddy due to the rain. the staff didn't even glance at my shoes or bag anyway (i only met two staff members - Boss Lady and Secretary Lady, who both wore normal daycare lady outfits, which basically equals a long flowery apron). also, to get into the place they have a gate thing and you have to read the sign to know you're supposed to press the intercom button and announce who you are, then to get out you have to read the sign to know you have to press the black button to unlock the gate. in both places the buttons were kinda hidden, like the black button you only saw if you actually crouched down : /

anyway, no tour of the building, didn't meet any of the english-speaking staff etc. there was no explanation about work duties, no asking about my experience, etc. it was pretty much entirely a "in a very basic sense what kind of person are you, where do you live and what do you study" thing, which i'm coming to find is veeeeeeery normal in japanese society. they asked me:

• are you a student? at which school? what are you studying?
• is japanese difficult? (= the most difficult thing is the meanings listed in the dictionary for words and kanji are wrong and are different from their usage in real life)
• where do you live? how did you get here? (= two trains)
• will you be studying while working here?
• which job are you interested in, part-time or full-time?
• do you have a part-time job right now? what is it? (= english teaching), is it for a company or private?
• where did you see the job ad from?
• how long have you been in japan? how long have you studied japanese? where do you come from? where (= which country) did you start studying japanese?
• (after i mentioned i have a wife) you're married? is your wife japanese? is she also a student, or what's her job?
• (when i said i brought my resume in japanese too) did you write this japanese yourself? (to which i answered "yes, so maybe it's full of mistakes" and she replied "no, no!" and laughed)
• so you're intending to live in japan forever, right? (she guessed this after i said i loved japan lol)

and that's about it. that was the whole interview. not one bit of special polite language (only basic, standard "desu / masu"). the only thing was they said "gokurou sama deshita" about five times, which is your clue to leave as it basically always means either "see you later" or "hey nice to see you", so i said "thank you very much" five times back, because i don't know what you're actually supposed to SAY in response to that. i think you just repeat it back at them but i'm not sure so i thought "thanks" was a safer bet. bowing every time you say it of course.

i really, really, really hope i get the job!! !! !! !!!! but i have no idea how many people they're hiring, what kinds of people with what kinds of work experience came before me, etc. if i get this job it'll be great, on top of the interview and hiring process being totally no-pressure i'm sooo glad it seems like a super relaxed workplace. it was just like talking to all my laid-back teachers at my japanese school.