Rejected!!!

Today, I found out that a recent "trick" did not go well. Am crushed!!! Apparently, candidate did not want future liaisons because she "wanted someone who knew more about science." (During my audition, we discussed the fact that I had a background in social science, as opposed to star-gazing (uhh...astronomy) which is the major she plans to pursue at a U.S. college.) However, my booker-(he's African American and a long-time resident of Japan)- informed me that he personally thought it might have been a colour thing. Who knew??!!!....Okay, this I did know!

Some pretty heinous stereotypes of African-Americans exist in Japan and it seems that sometimes, even if one does not live up (or is that down?) to those stereotypes, you will still occasionally face a polite "no thank you," generally not to your face, but communicated to you through the agency. My booker even mentioned the fact that he has heard of many, ah, let's just say unfortunate occurences where some (redneck) white Americans actually go out of their way to promulgate (or at least perpetuate) such stereotypes! Yikes!

I've also just become aware that apparently, if you're white, you can show up for a demo in a t-shirt and torn jeans, and speak like a grade-school drop-out, but if you're black, you'd better be dressed to the nines and come across like a distinguished, yet intelligible and approachable grammarian with a couple of Ph.D.'s. Hmmm....reminds of me of the advice drummed into me constantly as a kid..."Candice, you have to be three times as good as "the white man" to succeed."

Or maybe I should just pretend to know more about astrology...I mean astronomy?!!!