arrrrgg!
And Happy Halloween. As my students now know, ãƒ?ãƒï½³ï½ªãƒ¼ãƒ³ã?¯ã‚·ãƒ¢ãƒŠå…ˆç”Ÿã?®å¤§å¥½ã??ã?ªholidayã? 。I celebrated with friends at a local bar, with about the best music I’ve heard at a DJ’d event in Japan.
I was a pirate. Unfortunately there were enough pirates for a respectably sized crew. For the record, I am in Japan, besides for web surfing I am pop-culturally isolated. How could I have known that pirate was going to be the single most popular costume in the entire world? I just think Johnny Depp is hot, and, uh, I want to be him I guess. Walk the plank the rest of ye scurvy copycat scallawags! Costume-wise it was a bit depressing for me.
But everyone put a lot of thought into their costumes, and the Japanese partiers who came also got into it, so that was cool. Definitely one of the better parties I’ve been to around here.
An enjoyable Halloween night, the beautiful wedding of an aquaintance-almost-friend and other events in the last few weeks have conspired to give me pause about my blithe decision to leave next year. Up to now it has seemed so obvious, that two years is the perfect amount of time. Three years would be too long, but two is just enough.
Or is it? Do I really know this place? I’m more settled in for sure. It isn’t as exciting as last year, but as a trade off it is more comfortable. People I meet even seem to express a little bit of respect; sticking it out for a second year, huh? I still get complimented on my use of chopsticks at every enkai, and I am still barely literate, but I am in this for another year, not giving up just yet, and that’s worth something.
Also finally, this past summer and this fall, I am getting to know some people I could really be friends with. Actual Japanese people, shocking I know. I think I’m starting to become a part of other people’s lives, and that’s a distinction I never would have made even half a year ago.
Another plus; school is going more smoothly this year. I have figured out ways to work with nearly all of my teachers, I don’t bitch more than once a week about them anymore. Somehow, coming full-circle to the material I taught last year and facing it again, I now recognize steps I can take to improve my teaching, and the thought of class doesn’t sent me into a panic anymore. No more not-a-real-teacher non-Japanese-speaking blind leading the non-English-comprehending blind; now I run my classes the way I want…mostly. I’m over my stage fright…almost completely. It’s taken a full year to get this far.
There are certainly the things that didn’t go well–this year’s school festival, for example. This summer, which would have been better spent several thousand miles from Japan. The fact that I’m not teaching an adult class this year, apparently. But it kind of makes me want to do it over, just once more, and get it right this time. See Mami-chan, who told me she’d make sure we did something in next year’s school festival, and her friends graduate.
I know the routine now; life gets busier and busier until Christmas, and then after break it escalates a little more until the end of February, when the seniors stop coming to school, and then the freshmen and sophomores eventually take their finals, and then there’s graduation in March and life steadily slows down again despite the beginning of the new school year until summer when everything is dead. Arrive September, repeat.
The way this year is passing another year might just fly by if I signed on for it…what to do?
By the way, for some stuff about rocks and feminism and an occasional piratey Yarrrr! check out this blog.
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