Joel Matthew Rees
Notes on My Résumé
10 March 2017, Amagasaki, Japan
-- Author -- Teaching myself to write fantasy novels with help from the LDS Beta Readers group.
-- Economics 101, a Novel, First Draft
-- Pieces of other work on-line
-- Assistant English Instructor -- Otemon Gakuin Otemae Jr. High and High School, Osaka City: 2014 -- 2017.
-- Team teacher in both junior high and high school classes,
-- Lead teacher for special high school English courses,
-- English Club advisor, English activities leader, other English education related responsibilities.
-- Assistant Language Teacher -- Osaka Prefecture schools via staffing agency: 2006 ~ 2014.
-- Special advanced high school class for Osaka City, 2013 to 2014,
-- Okibe Jr. High, Okibe Elementary, Okibe Higashi Elementary in Higashi Osaka City, from 2008 to 2013,
-- Minoh 1st Jr. High, Minoh Nishi Elementary and Minoh Elementary in Minoh City, school year 2007,
-- Takatsuki 3rd Jr. High in Takatsuki City, school year 2006.
The first responsibility is to help the Japanese teachers of English in any way I can, including pre-lesson planning, materials preparation, both lead and support roles in lessons, and correcting assignments. Helping students become comfortable with English is a close second in priority.
I have a high approval rating with my schools, and I enjoy the work, feel very productive at it.
Unfortunately, these jobs do not really pay enough to provide for my family, and provide no real path for advancement for someone of my age. Also, it is not stable work, with both regular and arbitrary downtime requirements to comply with Japanese staffing law and policy. I would welcome more stable work.
My initial motivation for switching from the computer industry to teaching English was that I wanted to get a better understanding of Japanese society. I wanted to study Japanese culture from underneath, so to speak. I think I have been able to accomplish that.
-- Computer Programmer, Software Engineer at various Japanese companies: 1996 ~ 2005
Kobe, Kakogawa, Osaka, Amagasaki.
Areas of work include
networking and network security (Perl, Java, C, Bash, openSSL ~ Linux and BSD),
various kinds of web applications (Perl, PHP, Java, MySQL, PostGreSQL ~ Apache)
multimedia and education applications (Hypercard and similar media scripting languages),
database applications, including XML database,
automated design tools and utilities for MCADAM (C, MCADAM macros).
To be honest, I have not felt productive with my work in the computer industry in Japan. I have watched communication issues among native staff cause serious problems at several companies, and been unable to help because of my own limited understanding of Japanese culture. I have been twice let go for performance issues that were primarily caused by my difficulties in understanding the points of view of my co-workers. (Thus my desire to understand Japanese culture better.)
-- Other jobs in Japan include private English conversation teacher, parcel sorting, event and construction guard, and translating.
-- Jobs in the US include controls software engineer, electronics assembly and repair, delivery driver, teaching assistant, tutor, consumer electronics sales. Also worked part-time as a newscarrier during junior high and high school.
-- I served two years as a full-time proselyting missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the (then) Tokyo North Mission, 1978-80.
-- Degrees, Certifications, Licenses, etc.:
- Bachelor of Science, Computer Science at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 1993.
(College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.)
Started to design my own personal computer (68000 or 6809 based) and OS while taking classes. Got too involved in the classwork and never finished.
- Associate of Applied Science, Electronic Data Processing, Odessa College, Odessa, Texas, 1983.
(Equivalent to Business Information Science.)
Started in the electronics technology coursework and switched to EDP for programming classes.
- Certificate of Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level N1 -- JEES/JF (January 2011)
Level N1 is the current highest level for the foreigner-oriented JLPT. It seems to be roughly equivalent to the ability of the average Japanese high school graduate. I am looking at the Nihongo Kentei as my next step, probably at level 3.
- LPIC-1 Junior Level Linux Certification, Linux Professional Institute Japan (August 2011)
This is an entry-level certification in operating and administering Linux OSses. Dead simple. Yes, I know I need to take higher level certifications and certify in database tech, etc.
- Japanese Driver's license, permanent residence status in Japan.
-- Six-year gap: 1987 ~ 1992
Basically, I was trying to do what Linus Torvalds did, but with much more ambitious goals and much less to start from -- My goals included hardware from scratch using a 680X0 or 6809 instead of the fashionable 80X86 and my own system development language and tools. I did succeed, in 1987, in producing my own dialect of FORTH (on the 6809 based Radio Shack Color Computer). While I was at it, I spent a lot of time fighting with my personal demons and studying OS-9/6809, ANSI C, FORTH, and fundamental computer science.
I have been able to resurrect part of my independent projects, an assembler for the 6800 which I wrote at BYU, and an incomplete re-implementation in C of my FORTH dialect.
Copyright 2003 to 2013 Joel Matthew Rees
(My personal web server is off-line for budgetary reasons.)
I can be contacted at joel.rees+cv@gmail.com.