In the morning, I finished a small article, which will be published in November.
Then, I started preparing the presentation held in August 22. I was working on the seminar scheduled at the end of this month, too.
An ex-PhD student of mine visited me. Because of the earthquake, he was asked by the company to stay at his in Hokkaido with the 70%-payment till October starts. Good life!
Of course, in fact, he was not happy about his half-a-year vacation, because he was all ready and happy to start working from April. He tries to take this opportunity positively, though.
He was going to drink out with my present students. To my sorrow, I had no time and kept working.
All I can say is – where do I sign up for that job? BTW – did you mean he just has to stay home? Tough life… but at least he’s got a (sort of) job. We know that it’s a tough time still for getting employment in Japan now. Hopefully the tide will turn soon.
The situation is that he got his job in an automobile-related company and was asked to work for them from April. However, because of the earthquake on 311, not only the main factory in Fukushima was destroyed, but people are still not allowed to get in because of the radioactivity leakage from the power plants; the shifting and rescheduling of the product manufacturing in the other factories are urgent. He was fired as a researching stuff, and is not needed at this very moment.
However, after the recovery, they will need researchers, and the company does not want to lose him. So the company gave him a paid vacation for half a year. The contract says that although he is not working, he is an employee and should not work for another company. He should not stay home all the time, but he cannot work now.
Have I explained? The situation emerged only because of the quake.