well I haven't signed anything yet, but long story short, I've decided to give Takahagi another year. i feel like i should have a more definite reason that i can write about and tell people when they inevitably ask why, but i'm gonna have to think a bit more before i can do that. i know there are things i still want to get out of living in japan. i want to get better at japanese and at least pass the nikkyuu. i want to make actual japanese friends. i want to buy a mark II touring V and learn how to drift. and while i do worry about missing another year back home, i think in the end it will have to wait. honestly, i know i will greatly miss out on being able to see my friends and family back home. but also, one thing i have to thank the JET program for is providing me with the motivation and clarity of purpose in going to law school. my last post was completely true, but maybe it came off as being a bit negative in how i view the day to day activities of my job. in the end, i still don't want the weekends to be over, and i still can't wait for friday night to come around, but the time in between isn't all that bad. i really really like my job. i have more "damn, life is good" moments than any other time I can think of. but, JET hopefully has shown me that there is a lot more to life than just a "fun" 9-5 job. i have no real idea of what law school would offer me, but i know now that i want to go down that road next. i only hope that after giving me that desire JET hasn't taken away my ability to actually accomplish it, as I can feel my grasp on the English language lessening every single day...
anyway. i will come back to america eventually. please wait for me. i miss everyone back home, and it was not an easy decision to postpone our reunion for another year. i know my path will bring me back in line with the people that matter to me, but it will have to be just a little later. in the meantime, come to japan! you might not ever get the chance again to have such a knowledgeable tour guide that you know so well :) also, i think i wasn't completely telling the truth last time when i said i didn't really have any girls on the mind. turns out thats impossible.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
2 weeks or so to figure this out
hey hey, look at that. it did in fact take another month and a half for me to write a new post (I just finished the post from December 20th a couple minutes ago). first off, i never got around to linking in all the pictures that i talked about a couple posts ago. but you can take a look at the gallery of all my pictures of takahagi here . i feel like there's a lot more that i want to share about this town. unfortunately i already have to decide within the next couple weeks whether or not i want to spend another year working and living in takahagi, and its a hell of a question.
here's my daily routine: get up, bike to school (or get driven to kimida) and get there maybe 2 minutes before the first class starts. if i have to teach, then i go to class, and talk with my JTE on the way to figure out what we will do. more often than not, my role in class is to read out of the textbook, wander around the room and help kids as they do worksheets, and occasionally something more interesting. i have lunch with a different class each day, which is mostly eaten in silence, unless the kids are feeling talkative. but really, they barely have enough time to finish all their food in the lunch break, so I cut them some slack. when i don't have class, i sit in the teachers room and attempt to amuse myself, or to do something productive, but usually just end up dozing in my chair. at 4:15 i leave, usually feeling slightly guilty about not attending the basketball practice. (but im gonna start back up with it! really!) after school i usually have some errands to run, and then i go to the gym with tim, get back, eat some food and chill for an hour or two on the internet or with some video games before i go to sleep. on weekends, I will usually meet up with friends in Mito, or, if someone comes up with a good enough reason, I will spend the change (about $60 round trip) and time (at least 2 hours each way) to go into Tokyo.
it might not sound like it from that description, but my job is actually my favorite part of life these days. my job is easy and pretty stress free, if not particularly challenging. overall i really enjoy working with (all but one) of the japanese teachers. and every day one of my kids will end up doing something or saying something to make me smile or laugh. sometimes even on purpose. and when we actually plan out lessons, and they work, i get a huge feeling of satisfaction. the flip side of how easy my job is is that its not particularly fulfilling. however, i know from experience that its mostly because of the lack of work i put into most lessons. as i said, when it works, its a great feeling. but, even when I feel like I have accomplished something in my job, there is still a nagging feeling that I should be doing something more with my life.
I think what I ideally want out of my job is to do something that I enjoy and I feel I am uniquely qualified for. So overall JET gives me half of that, which is better than the last job I had, which gave me neither. one of the things holding me back from truly being fulfilled in my job as an ALT is the sense that I am replaceable. which I am. which is why JET is a temporary position. this feeling stops me from getting everything i need even when I'm thinking to myself "this job is awesome."
and for the past week, I haven't even been liking my job very much at all. unfortunately the A part of ALT stands for assistant, which means that the Japanese teachers we are assigned to work with control a large part of the job experience for us. I feel lucky in that I am perfectly happy and content with 8 of the 9 junior high school teachers I work with. but that last teacher makes me dread work. i realize that much of my frustration and anger at working with her is in no way her fault, but that doesn't stop the situation from making me want to get the fuck out of the country. the worst part is how my frustrations carry over to other people at that school who aren't even involved in teaching english, or the kids themselves.
to add onto that, life outside of the classroom leaves much to be desired as well. the weekday routine isn't bad. going to the gym at least 3 times a week is a pretty good habit to get into. but unfortunately thats basically all I have time to do. the biggest problem with takahagi is its location. being 45 minutes to an hour from the nearest group of people i can hang out with means that i have to invest a serious amount of time just for traveling to and from my destination. so, i can't really go to the gym, then meet up with friends, and then get home. and thats just if i want to go to mito, which is a nice place, but no tokyo. going outside of ibaraki is an even bigger investment, and straight out impossible on a weekday. even on the weekends it means finding a place to stay and paying even more money, or leaving to catch the last train back to takahagi just when things are starting to get fun.
so life is fairly solitary. and isolated. which I have actually been dealing with pretty well. in fact, living by myself was one of the things i was looking forward to doing in japan. not that i havent enjoyed having roommates in the past, but it is very very comforting to come back home and have it be your home, and no one else's. im also finding being single and not looking for any kind of relationship nice. More than just the fact that that this is the longest I've gone without having a girlfriend since soph year of college, this is the first time in a long time when I'm not obsessing or worrying over one girl or another. i like having all that time and mental capacity open once again. But, do I really want my life to just be something I can "deal with?" the past couple weekends I have been going to Tokyo and having a great time. but that train ride back home to ibaraki is hell. more than that, I can tell that the isolation and solitude could get to be more than i can deal with sometime soon. but thank god for the weekends.
ok i basically just vomited up the entire contents of my brain onto my blog space. there's always more to say, but i still need to sort a lot out. i basically wrote this for myself, but if you actually read all this, thanks! i would definitely appreciate any thoughts.
here's my daily routine: get up, bike to school (or get driven to kimida) and get there maybe 2 minutes before the first class starts. if i have to teach, then i go to class, and talk with my JTE on the way to figure out what we will do. more often than not, my role in class is to read out of the textbook, wander around the room and help kids as they do worksheets, and occasionally something more interesting. i have lunch with a different class each day, which is mostly eaten in silence, unless the kids are feeling talkative. but really, they barely have enough time to finish all their food in the lunch break, so I cut them some slack. when i don't have class, i sit in the teachers room and attempt to amuse myself, or to do something productive, but usually just end up dozing in my chair. at 4:15 i leave, usually feeling slightly guilty about not attending the basketball practice. (but im gonna start back up with it! really!) after school i usually have some errands to run, and then i go to the gym with tim, get back, eat some food and chill for an hour or two on the internet or with some video games before i go to sleep. on weekends, I will usually meet up with friends in Mito, or, if someone comes up with a good enough reason, I will spend the change (about $60 round trip) and time (at least 2 hours each way) to go into Tokyo.
it might not sound like it from that description, but my job is actually my favorite part of life these days. my job is easy and pretty stress free, if not particularly challenging. overall i really enjoy working with (all but one) of the japanese teachers. and every day one of my kids will end up doing something or saying something to make me smile or laugh. sometimes even on purpose. and when we actually plan out lessons, and they work, i get a huge feeling of satisfaction. the flip side of how easy my job is is that its not particularly fulfilling. however, i know from experience that its mostly because of the lack of work i put into most lessons. as i said, when it works, its a great feeling. but, even when I feel like I have accomplished something in my job, there is still a nagging feeling that I should be doing something more with my life.
I think what I ideally want out of my job is to do something that I enjoy and I feel I am uniquely qualified for. So overall JET gives me half of that, which is better than the last job I had, which gave me neither. one of the things holding me back from truly being fulfilled in my job as an ALT is the sense that I am replaceable. which I am. which is why JET is a temporary position. this feeling stops me from getting everything i need even when I'm thinking to myself "this job is awesome."
and for the past week, I haven't even been liking my job very much at all. unfortunately the A part of ALT stands for assistant, which means that the Japanese teachers we are assigned to work with control a large part of the job experience for us. I feel lucky in that I am perfectly happy and content with 8 of the 9 junior high school teachers I work with. but that last teacher makes me dread work. i realize that much of my frustration and anger at working with her is in no way her fault, but that doesn't stop the situation from making me want to get the fuck out of the country. the worst part is how my frustrations carry over to other people at that school who aren't even involved in teaching english, or the kids themselves.
to add onto that, life outside of the classroom leaves much to be desired as well. the weekday routine isn't bad. going to the gym at least 3 times a week is a pretty good habit to get into. but unfortunately thats basically all I have time to do. the biggest problem with takahagi is its location. being 45 minutes to an hour from the nearest group of people i can hang out with means that i have to invest a serious amount of time just for traveling to and from my destination. so, i can't really go to the gym, then meet up with friends, and then get home. and thats just if i want to go to mito, which is a nice place, but no tokyo. going outside of ibaraki is an even bigger investment, and straight out impossible on a weekday. even on the weekends it means finding a place to stay and paying even more money, or leaving to catch the last train back to takahagi just when things are starting to get fun.
so life is fairly solitary. and isolated. which I have actually been dealing with pretty well. in fact, living by myself was one of the things i was looking forward to doing in japan. not that i havent enjoyed having roommates in the past, but it is very very comforting to come back home and have it be your home, and no one else's. im also finding being single and not looking for any kind of relationship nice. More than just the fact that that this is the longest I've gone without having a girlfriend since soph year of college, this is the first time in a long time when I'm not obsessing or worrying over one girl or another. i like having all that time and mental capacity open once again. But, do I really want my life to just be something I can "deal with?" the past couple weekends I have been going to Tokyo and having a great time. but that train ride back home to ibaraki is hell. more than that, I can tell that the isolation and solitude could get to be more than i can deal with sometime soon. but thank god for the weekends.
ok i basically just vomited up the entire contents of my brain onto my blog space. there's always more to say, but i still need to sort a lot out. i basically wrote this for myself, but if you actually read all this, thanks! i would definitely appreciate any thoughts.
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