Last day at work! And stamping.

In Japan, people do not sign their names. Instead we have stamps with our names that we stamp where in other countries you would sign. This means that if you opened a bank account with your signature (some banks allow that), they expect your signature to look exactly the same every time you want to do something with your account, since a stamp always looks the same.

This can be funny (or annoying, depending on your personality) when banking, since I usually have to sign my name and they say "No, it does not look like the sign in our system, can you try again?" a few times, and after some time they even show me the picture in the system and say: "No, like this." (not the best security measure...) Usually, after seven tries or so, they give up and tell me to hand over my foreigner registration card (ID card), and they make a copy of that and stamp that they swear I was hear but I was not able to write my name...

So having a stamp simplifies things. It is also convenient when our professor is away but he needs to sign things here, as he leaves his stamp with our secretary so she stamps things with his name even when he is not here...

Anyway, I have to go to a special building far away and stamp with my private stamp every day that I am here today and working (otherwise I will not be paid for that day). It seems like a waste of time, and most professors apparently send their secretaries to stamp for them.

Since my contract ran out on March 31, this was my last day of stamping this book. My friend suggested I take a picture to commemorate this huge event. It would have been nice if the university could give you your new contract in time, so you could plan your future and now if you have a job next week or not, but our university is very slow in giving out contracts. Last year I got my contract (for my job that started April 1) on April 6... This year, it is also quite unclear if they are actually going to rehire me or not, so Monday will be exiting I guess.