Keeping Track

Here it is: the end of week one. I really really enjoyed it! For just a second, let's think about this JET Programme idea. What other highly respected and competitive program accepts a person in a teaching role based on a couple of questions, an essay about their desire to come to Japan, and a 30-minute interview with some random people who will never have another thing to do with said applicant? After that, what kind of program takes these people, puts them in almost random assignments, giving both applicant and employer a crap shoot of a chance that all may go to hell in a number of weeks or months? So far, I'd have to say a pretty good one.

But these are just my views based on five weeks or so of excellent experiences in the lush beauty of Higashi Village, northern Okinawa. While I'm no soothsayer and I can hardly tell the future, I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm getting myself into and what kind of person I am. These intuitions, while far from perfect, have given me the sense that this year is going to be a good one. In an email to a friend earlier today, I told her "I think I may have finally found something fun, challenging, and meaningful." In all the things people look for in a career, what more could one ask for, what better combination than these?

This statement is perhaps one of the most true I've uttered in a while. Why else would I find myself spending 11 willing hours a day at my first school, when work clearly ends at 5:00? For sure, lunch is superb and there's a new guy in class, but after school is when the kids really go for making the connection. Amidst track practice, shot-put, long jump, plyometrics, and a little bit of baseball, there's something there that just doesn't happen within the 50 minutes of teaching, as fun as it may be.

So as we stood in a circle after stretching, most everyone made some sort of comment on the day regarding the work put in or the specific efforts made by students and teachers alike. Today, Kai (one of the eldest junior high school students) asked me to say something, and it went kind of like this: "Thank you for an amazing first week. I'm already sad to think about being gone for two weeks, but I know that when I get back the welcome will be amazing. Thank you and keep working hard."

Before leaving, I got invited to go swimming in the Arakawa River next weekend. I'm meeting up with a few of the teachers and we're heading off for an afternoon of who knows what. Kind of like signing up and accepting a position on the JET Programme with no real idea about what's going to happen, I'm really excited! Waisu desu.