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Run of Higashi

29 out of 2009

Take this year, 2009. Remove the chafe. What are you left with?

29. My number for this year (and one I share with a close friend). That's all that mattered today.

Thanks everyone for your wishes and support!

See you next year.

Opportune

I went to dinner with some ALTs on Saturday night. One of the things we talked about was showing up to school on any given day and being told of a change in schedule, specifically the kind where scheduled classes have been rescheduled and our workload for a day reduced. We all agreed it was a nice thing to experience.

This is what happened to me today. I showed up to school this morning and found the weekly schedule on my desk. Two classes for every day of the week, plus an additional three elementary lessons scattered throughout the week. But this week is 学年末テスト(gakunenmatsu tesuto) “end of term test” week, meaning the junior high school students have tests for three out of five days, so half of the scheduled classes are periods during which the students will be taking tests (no need for me). Those classes scheduled before the tests are being used for test review, which apparently means I don’t have to attend.

So my two classes today, while not canceled, don’t need me. I’m using the time to write this as well as to study Japanese. I should just ask for the day off and go home and make some bread, go for a run, do some laundry, whatever. But in Japan (and only in my experience as an assistant teacher in elementary and junior high schools), work doesn’t seem to be about doing a lot. Rather, it seems to be about being seen a lot. This was kind of true for me at the Fed - I would fly through work that would take my counterparts a full week to do. I would find myself taking nice walks through Chicago or reading a lot in the library on the 11th floor. I got to do my work and have some leisure time as well. Maybe you’re going to tell me I should have asked for more work to do, but I am a highly devoted member of the “work to live” club, not the “live to work” club. When I’m dying, the last thing I’m going to wish I had done was more work.

It’s 9:50. I’ve got about seven hours to go. I wonder if I could get away with one of those long trips now.

One more

I have signed a contract for a third year in Higashi. I’m staying because, overall, I love my life here and I like my job. I love getting to spend time with kids and watch them mature from one year to the next, let alone one month to the next. Though sometimes it can get a little too quiet and rural, and while there are moments when I yearn for things like faster internet and a lifestyle that doesn’t include needing a car, I like Higashi (and considering I lived in Chicago before this, it would seem that proximity to large bodies of water is a necessity for me). I like the warm weather and the ability to spend time walking on beaches without it having to be a special trip. I’m still learning lots of Japanese, really, lots of it (see below on learning curve).

Obviously, staying a third year has more to offer me in the way of good things; otherwise I would not have decided to stay. The image that just popped into my head was one of a learning curve, starting to rise slowly, at some point increasing dramatically, and then finally settling off and drawing toward a finite limit (though in cases of life experience, is there ever a limit?). I find myself somewhere on that steep slope, with a whole lot learned and a whole lot more to experience.

My friend Cliff puts it this way: “When I leave Japan, I want to be ready to leave Japan.” JET gives ALTs a limit of three years (in exceptional cases four or five). Assuming I sign off after three, I will have spent roughly 1/10th of my life in Japan. That’s a lot of time. And I'm not ready to leave just yet.

And since I feel like being provocative, I’ll give you a preview of my idea after JET. It involves one motorcycle in the range of 125-250cc, lots of time, and a westerly direction. A few years ago when I did the Mongol Rally (2006), I completed a circum-navigation of the earth going east. Though I can hardly consider Chicago a starting point this time around, I consider myself heading west this time. So I’m set for a plan for the next 18 months. After that, I think the 30’s are going to turn out to be my most interesting decade yet.

Making a Decision, Part I - The Process

This post is coming a few days late, since I've had some recent medical things to take care of. Don't worry, I'll get to that in another post, but it's caused me to be busy enough to let other things slide.

This Friday, February 6th, marks the deadline for the JET Programme’s (JET) re-contracting process. Every Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) on JET must make a decision about whether they will stay for another year or move on to something else. It is no different for me. Though the deadline is only days away, I have been thinking about this decision for months.

Last year at this time, the decision was easy. I had only been in Japan for six months, and the idea of leaving after a year seemed entirely too hasty. There were those who decided that one year here was enough for them, but I knew coming into JET that I would stay for at least two years. I had a few conversations about this, most notably with my friend Kate. Not too long after her wedding (which I was disappointed to miss), we got in touch and the idea of a third year came up. I remember saying I wasn’t sure yet, that I would have to see how the rest of my second year goes. And this is where one of the problems with the JET re-contracting process arises ? timing.

Applications for JET are accepted up to the first Sunday in December. Applicants deemed worthy receive replies around mid- to late-January and are offered interviews in mid-February. All interviewees receive replies of acceptance or denial around late-March to April, and those accepted receive placement notifications in May. Successful applicants will then have a matter of months to prepare themselves and their things for the trip overseas.

You might notice this application process is based on the U.S. school year. Primarily, it gives senior college students the chance to apply for JET during their final year. Upon graduation, successful applicants have 1-2 months before leaving for Japan (professionals like I was simply quit when they feel like it). But before the new ALTs take off, the current ALTs must have decided whether they will stay or go. To sync this whole process, the deadline for current ALTs to re-contract or not is the first Friday of February. As one presenter at this year’s Okinawa JET Mid-Year Conference put it, “they really make you decide too quickly.” After just six months of living in a new country, after the season with the shortest days, during a period where many begin to experience symptoms of culture shock, and after a period of time that’s not really suitable to making the best decision, JET makes us choose.

All this leads me to my point that the decision to stay another year or not is not as easy as it seems. The decision I make by Friday will either leave me with six more months of working on JET (meaning I’d be 3/4 through my JET career) or another year and a half (putting me at the half-way point). When I think about making a decision that will contract me for one and a half years, it seems pretty heavy.

Each day this week, I’ll be making posts about my decision to re-contract or not. Today’s is the first, a brief description of how the process works. Tomorrow, I’ll outline the positive things about JET and my life in Japan. Wednesday will be the counter to that, touching on some of the things that could be going better or just aren’t going well. Thursday’s post will be a wrap-up of any other points or thoughts I may have forgotten. And then Friday, I’ll post my decision.