Teacher and student

I’ve been accepted to the Liberty University graduate school to study for a Master of Arts in Teaching with a specialty in middle school English. My plan is to take one course from January until March, and then two courses from March to May. The first week of the two-course load will be my last full week of work in Japan, so the timing is pretty good. I’m still working on getting a few documents sorted before I fully commit to the program. And there’s a lot to think about, moving back to the US.

I’ve complained about my junior high school a lot, but last week one of the teachers came to me and told me that they want me to stay another year at that school. I really appreciated that, and I also told her that I was grateful for the opportunity to observe and participate in class (as calling my duties there “teaching” seems like an arrogant exaggeration). Of course I told her that I was going home next year, but anyway, the exchange did make me feel better.

Usually the socially challenged class is my least favorite to teach, but recently I had kind of a special experience. There is a girl in that class who has ADHD and sometime does no work at all during class. This day I was asked to work with her, which rarely happens. The last time I did so, back in the first term, she quickly got frustrated that I wouldn’t speak Japanese with her. This time though, she was much more willing to make an effort to understand. I think one thing that helped me was that, first thing I asked her how she was, and tried to respond appropriately to her answer with another question or sympathetic nods or whatever. Afterward, she easily made it through her assigned worksheet and then we talked. First we talked about ways to write the number seven, which she obviously enjoyed. Then I asked her about zero, and she didn’t understand but was so interested in my question that she called my co-teacher over to translate. So I was happy that a student would try so hard to understand me

I went to a men’s drinking party with teachers from one of my elementary schools and we had a great evening. The meat was fantastic--it was high-grade beef which we dipped in raw egg. The seafood was good too, especially the squid sashimi, although some of the sashimi was a bit too fishy for my taste. After the restaurant, we went to a "snack bar". Its closest American equivalent would probably be a karaoke bar, but I've never been to one so I'm not sure about that. Snack bars have a seedy reputation, but the one we went to was pretty classy. I sang some songs, two in Japanese and two in English, but I didn’t do a good job. Regardless, it was one of the best, most comfortable parties I have ever attended.

Yesterday I took the big Japanese test that I failed last year. Overall I feel that I did better, which was my goal. I managed to read and try to understand all but a few questions from the reading section compared to about half last year. I’ll get the results online in late January. And with this test finished, I have a presentation for my co-workers on Wednesday and a Christmas party for students on Sunday. After that there won’t be any particularly stressful events until the end of my time in Japan, possibly excepting graduate school assignments.

Internet Morality, Halloween and Nagoya

There was a lecture about internet morality at the junior high school. The speaker said some really thought-provoking (刺激的な?) things. Some of them would not be well received by an American audience. For example, he said that “if you do something bad in Japan, you’ll definitely be caught.” This was mainly within the context of internet crime, but even there I think it’s a stretch to tell a bunch of junior high students something that is so unlikely to be true. Another one of his points was that we ought to think about how others feel when we show them how much fun we’re having. When we brag about traveling or having a nice smartphone or computer, think about the feelings of people who can’t have those things. I appreciate this thought, but I’m sure it would encounter a lot of resistance in America.

The speaker had some good ideas too, though. His keyword was 置換的思考力--the ability to exchange ways of thinking. Normally I would think that the internet would facilitate the exchange of different ideas, and I still think that it can. But the speaker made a good point that people with similar ways of thinking tend to gather together, and the internet certainly does make that easier as well. Then, he said, if these people continue to associate with each other, one begins to think that everyone has the same thoughts, and therefore one can become dismissive when encountering a different perspective because most of one’s interactions are with that group of people with the same perspective.

I think this is true outside the internet as well, in a school. It’s quite common for students to only interact with other similarly-aged students (in similar situations) as peers. Teachers and parents are authority figures, and because of that there might be inherent resistance to their ideas. It would be nice if students could exchange ideas on an even level with a greater variety of people. In America this probably tends to happen at university, or maybe even as late as the job field. I think it would be beneficial for middle and high school students to be exposed to this sooner, first so that they might not be so strongly influenced, and secondly so that they can appreciate their present life more.

Saturday I went to the Halloween festival in Shiojiri. It was fun to see so many of my students, although I didn’t know what to say to them most of the time, and somehow I kept forgetting that it would probably be okay to speak Japanese (especially if they weren’t trying to speak English). Oh well. I wore my pirate costume to school on Halloween day. The kids were astounded that I would wear something so strange *during class*. I don’t remember well enough for sure, but I don’t think it would be too strange for students to wear modest, non-inhibiting costumes in America. Although that does sound like a bit of a dress code nightmare, so it’s probably not usually allowed. Regardless, I can imagine the level of surprise in America being anything like how it was in Japan, both from the teachers and the students.

I went to Nagoya this past weekend. I saw my favorite museum, the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology. I was overwhelmed by it, even though it was my second time. I also met a friend there, and ate the most famous Nagoya dish--eel rice bowl. It was fantastic, even better than I expected.

Thoughts about biking

I had a long weekend, and while it wasn’t as productive or adventurous as I had hoped, it could have been worse too. There was a huge typhoon, apparently the strongest in sixty years, so it rained all day on Saturday. I had planned to do a bike trip, but people kept giving the warning not to go outside in the typhoon, so I stayed home all day. Then it also rained on Monday too, and since that was forecast, I changed my plan to a one-day bike trip. I went to Kiso-Fukushima, which I had been to before, about 43 km away, so about 90 km round trip with a few detours. It took me 2 hours 45 minutes to come back, which I did with minimal resting. I stopped in Naraijuku to buy some souvenirs, and in Kiso-Fukushima I went to the supermarket to browse, so altogether the trip was about 7.5 hours.

Kiso-Fukushima is a really beautiful town. It is closely hemmed in by mountains and is very hilly, but also has several bridges going over streams. Overall, it was a great trip, with the worst part being a 2 km tunnel just after Naraijuku with a narrow footpath. Aside from that, there was very little difficulty or danger. My only dissatisfaction was that I had to come back the same way I went.

I thought as I was biking that perhaps the main deterrent from my making these trips was because of difficulty sleeping in my hammock. I have tried four times and have not succeeded once in sleeping more than four hours. The prospect of physically exhausting myself only to set up camp and have a nearly sleepless night is hardly appealing, so maybe traveling without the intent to camp will motivate me more. Granted, then I’ll have to pay for accommodation, but biking will save nearly half the cost of travel in addition to providing a reason for the travel.

However, this revelation may have come too late. There’s only one more long weekend left this year, and I really want to use it to go to Nagoya. Biking to Nagoya would probably take two full days, and I’d like to have more time than that. January and February are really cold, but if I get a nice weekend without snow then maybe I can bike somewhere. Most likely though, if I want to take a decent trip, I’m going to have to wait until the end of my contract.

School Festival Day 1

I’m a little annoyed with myself for not chatting with Liberty after all. So I didn’t make the deadline, and I still haven’t heard from them after four business days. It seems I need to send them another email. I have been asleep by 10:00 most nights, and tired before then so I haven’t tried chatting. I’m a little worried that they might try to charge me an admission fee when I finally get them to look at my application, which would be a ridiculous result, but possible. Also, in the unlikely situation that I can’t transfer any credits, my late admission could potentially have an effect on my job prospects.

Today I went to my junior high school’s school festival, day one, which included a short kind of field day. The field day was a little long, but exciting. First, an entire class (25-35 students) jumped the same long jump-rope together to see how many times they could do it consecutively. The winning class made it to 50 times. They then challenged the teachers to beat them. I had never done it before, and some other teachers hadn’t done it in a long time. We made it to 12, so it was a bad loss.

Next there was an interesting kind of relay race, with each class competing against the other two in the same year. The races involved finding and running with a teacher, five people tied together in a vertical line, a sack race, a three-legged race, and running while jumping rope. Then the last event was a normal relay, in which every student ran, so it was rather long but still exciting.

I went climbing last night. I feel kind of adrift when I’m at home, but there is lots of cleaning to do, and today I need to cook a fairly involved meal.

Plans for the future

After summer vacation we began the second of three school terms. Every school has an opening ceremony at the beginning of each term, and this term’s ceremony at the junior high school was mercifully short. In general I think that the number of ceremonies and the procedures taken tend to be excessive if not altogether unnecessary, but that day’s ceremony made me think. About a quarter of it was dedicated to students reading an essay they wrote, probably at the end of last term. The subject was what they planned to do better this term. They all said that they would study harder for tests, for example.

This made me think about the power of saying (maybe communicating?) what you are or what you intend. Because the students announced their intentions, maybe their friends will hold them accountable, or maybe their own conscience will remind them. I remember that I told some people that I was going to bike to Matsumoto one night, and even though I didn’t want to do it, I did it because I had said that I would. Also, when I write on a social media profile that I like something, I feel some kind of compulsion to do that activity regardless of whether I feel like doing it or not.

Back on the future job front, I had been considering a more practical job like construction work to try out when I go back home. I looked into that and some other trade-type jobs, and it seems like two of the best trades are electrician and welder. Welding honestly sounds less interesting, more uncomfortable and involving a lot of heat. Being an electrician is apparently more dangerous, but it involves more creative and/or interpretative thinking and is less physical. Construction was the main thing I was interested in, but it sounds like a lot of hard work and doesn’t pay much better than customer service, whereas an electrician can make more than a teacher. Not as much as a programmer though, ugh.

I thought of a new idea for programming though—what if I focus on embedded systems? There are plenty of jobs for that, and they seem more worthwhile because they interact with the physical world. Also, they tend to use C from what I understand, which is a language I am familiar with. Having some electrician experience would be beneficial too, I would think. Although my programming education is getting further away from the present, I feel that if I ever get enough motivation to actually make something, I can probably get a job. I get a weekly email about programming which always has at least one story about someone who learned programming and got a job in a short amount of time.

In my last entry I mentioned that I might not be able to stay in one place for a long time. But instead of simply accepting this wanderlust as a part of my personality, I considered, “why do I want to move?” Maybe it’s partially social. I feel like my social group is stagnant and unsatisfying. I’m nervous about investing more in people, because there are more expectations, and I have difficulty remembering things about people unless I feel like I make a good connection with them. I think that’s part of the reason that I take breaks from church—I’m dissatisfied with my relations with people, and I want to try starting over.

Sure, I also want to experience new things and I do get tired of old things, but I’ve also never been in anything I considered a permanent position in the US, or anywhere else, for that matter. I’ve never thought to myself, “I could see myself doing this (or something closely related) in five or ten years.” I tried to get there with a programming job, but I was overwhelmed with my lack of success, and I wanted to go to Japan, and yeah, it was May, which is when I tend to get restless. So as soon as possible I should try finding a job that would potentially be more or less permanent, and then see if I really do have wanderlust. Also, improve my attitude or ability to interact with people. Hah.

But first I’m going to get my master’s in education. The school (Liberty University) has had all my documents for a week, but because I told them that I live in Japan they think that I’m a foreign citizen and therefore expect me to submit English proficiency scores. They haven’t yet responded to my emailed corrections, so it is looking like I won’t be officially accepted in time to start classes next month. Hopefully that won’t throw off my schedule though, and I’ll be able to finish the program by summer of 2021.

Summer Slump

First, a quick review of the past three months. After Golden Week (in the beginning of May), I had something of a crisis. I wasn't happy in my junior high school (which is 3 days a week) because I'm treated like the handicapped kid, and I felt overwhelmingly frustrated with my personal and career goals, as well as my relationships. Also, as mentioned in my last post, I hurt my finger quite badly and thus was unable to climb or play tennis, which meant I didn't really exercise. I shut down socially for about four weeks, and continued to struggle for about four more weeks. With summer vacation and my parents' visit imminent, I did better, but still outside of work I tried my best to avoid thinking about the future.

My parents and I had a good time I think, but it was really busy. We met on Thursday evening in Hokkaido and flew back to the main island the following Wednesday morning. The weather wasn't very cooperative for most of our time there, but we did our best to enjoy the scenery. I think we all agreed that our favorite place was Furano, location of the famous lavender fields. After flying back, we spent a very hot day in Nagoya before taking the train back to Nagano. I was in charge of this part of the trip, and I packed it a bit too full, but I think we saw at least a glimpse of nearly everything there is to see around here. We also spent a full day in Tokyo at the end of their visit.

It was quite helpful to talk to my parents while they were here. Even so, I felt somewhat frustrated by my lack of a clear future, and my motivation to be productive felt shallow and ready to dry up at the first sign of difficulty. Then on Monday, I took the new teacher shopping and talked with him for a bit. He brought up trying to get teaching certification while he was here. I didn't actually ask him, but I thought, "How is that even possible?" In the past I looked at NC state certification exclusively--maybe it was possible to get other state certifications purely online. So I googled it that night and sure enough, it was (although field work was still required). This was such an exciting relevation to me that I couldn't sleep, so I sent Mom an email about it.

In her reply that I got the next morning, she encouraged me to consider the master's degree option. Given the questionable nature of the academic accreditation of these programs, I didn't feel that a master's degree from them would be worthwhile, so I looked for other possibilities to get a Master's as well as state teaching certification outside of the US. I'm still looking, but I haven't had any success yet, so I looked at doing a master's in the US. Even when I moved to Japan I thought that if I tried for a master's in education again, I would do it through Liberty University, since it's a Christian school and shouldn't be as permeated by the dogma of public education. Looking at the Liberty University program, I figured out a plan that would be convenient and make good use of my time. According to this plan, I would return to the US at the end of March of next year.

For Japan, maybe more than any other place, it's important to already be in the country to get a job. Therefore by leaving the country, the possibility is good that I won't return. Even after thinking about it for three days I find that, surprisingly, this excites me more than it disturbs me. My biggest investment in this country has been my study of the language. As long as I have something to show for that even outside the country, I feel like that investment will have paid off. That isn't to say that I don't want to return--it is still my favorite place that I have lived. This prefecture, Nagano, is especially beautiful and has a nice climate, and the church I go to is particularly great. But the location's beauty and comfort can't make up for the aimlessness that I feel living here now. I also kind of wonder if I have the capacity to stay in one place for a long time. If not, then I think pursuing further education is the best step to a more fulfilling future.

Graduation and Spring Vacation

There were many tears at the junior high graduation last month, but my eyes were only a bit moist. I was given a bunch of very nice notes from the students. I gave two speeches on that day--one a farewell speech to the whole school, and one of them just to the faculty and the drinking party. Both speeches were well received, and at least two of the students also told their younger siblings about my speech.

At the elementary school I only saw a few third and fifth graders crying. For me it was more emotional though, maybe because elementary students are cuter and I'm slightly more attached to them. There is an actual ceremony (relatively short though, at about 30 minutes) to say goodbye to the teachers who are leaving. Every teacher leaving gives a speech at this ceremony. The third-grade teacher had only worked at the school for a year, but during her speech she started crying (she was the only one of all the teachers at either school to do this). At this point I started crying too. Because the elementary school isn't my base school, it was not official that I would not return next year, and thus I wasn't able to actually give a speech to say goodbye. That made me sad. I hope I’ll be able to visit the school again this year, though.

Since I moved apartments and became worried about my singing with the guitar being too loud, I decided to buy an electric violin. I found one at a second-hand shop, but it did not have any accessories except a shoulder rest. Knowing that it didn't have a violin case with it, I first checked around to see if I could find a used one. There was one violin case, but it was quite battered, with the latches just barely holding on, and the bow holders broken, and it smelled funny. It was only $5, but it was such junk that I wasn't sure I would even take it for free. So instead, I bought a cheap tennis racket case (which I needed anyway) for $8 and put the violin in it. It was a bit of a tight fit (probably would have been almost perfect if I had thought to take off the shoulder rest), but I felt that it was better than just carrying the violin in a bag, as I could keep it close to me and carry it easily.

I got home without incident, although I was really nervous, and tried it out. It turned out that there were no batteries, but I was surprised at how decent it sounded even without them. After buying some batteries, I practiced a little longer. Overall I was impressed and excited. However, my left arm started going numb within 5 minutes of playing, so I had to take a break. It happened again, so I decided that I needed to relearn the basics of how to hold a violin.

I moved apartments two weeks ago. The new apartment is much nicer in most ways, especially because it has an actual kitchen. The following weekend two new teachers came, and I did their orientation. 

As for my personal goals, I decided to try a physical checklist instead of using just a blog to track my progress, but I have yet to actually find a way to print it out. Nevertheless I have managed to stay relatively productive in my non-working hours, studying Japanese every day and going climbing at least twice a week.