I'm still adjusting emotionally, but I'm really starting to feel a lot more settled into life here lately. I know where most things are in the city now and can get around by bike or car, I've visited a lot of places and discovered some preferences and favorites, I feel accepted into the group of other ALTs here in the area, I'm getting along well with most of my teacher co-workers and I think they like me too, and my students are starting to show me more and more affection. The week before last I talked about Halloween and had a trick-or-treat demonstration with volunteers that most classes loved even if the participants were shy and a little unwilling in many cases, and this week I had a lot of really good classes, including some classes I had previously written off as unreachable and full of bad kids. Classes I always dreaded going to, and yet by the end of both of those classes, thanks to an activity the Japanese teacher introduced that gave me a lot more one-on-one time with many students, the kids were either arm-wrestling me or playing with my hair. I left the classroom, and one girl pops her head out into the hallway to wish me goodbye personally. Then I pass the most disruptive kid out in the hallway, and he acknowledges me in a way that feels like almost-fond acceptance. Yesterday, I was using the third-years' restroom (I think most teachers don't use the bathrooms off the classrooms, but I am not walking all the way across the school between classes to use the staff restroom) and a big group of girls was clustered around the mirrors looking at makeup or something. One girl sees me trying to get to the sink and says "You're in Sarah's way" so they will move. I also ate the school lunch (curry!) with a class and had a blast, hanging out with them during post-lunch break time and cleaning time too. Near the end of the day, two girls came up to my desk in the staff room and one said "Sarah, I love you! Very cute!" and the other wondered if my eye color was due to colored contacts......... hahaha.
I'm starting to feel like I belong.
Of course, I've decided to leave after the school year ends in March after all. Haha. Well, it won't be the same next year anyway: two of the Japanese teachers that I get along with really well (I went shopping with them last week! And have gotten lunch with both individually) won't be here next year, and of course all the third-years will have graduated and I have the most connections with third-year students at the moment. But yeah, ideally I'd stay. And I think if I was 22 and this was my first job out of college and I had no connections back home like a serious relationship, I would. But my circumstances are different. I can't just hang around wherever doing whatever. I need to only do things that directly contribute to the progress of my Japanese, so that I don't have to be here any longer than necessary. Of course, there are many great things about being here, things I missed after I left Japan the last two times and that I will certainly miss when I leave again (the variety of drinks you can get from vending machines, stores like Muji and Uniqlo, Shinto shrines, etc, just off the top of my head). But I miss home a lot. I miss my boyfriend. We are keeping our connection strong by chatting online almost every day, but it's still hard.
So, in April I'm moving to the Tokyo area to strike out on my own. We'll see what happens. I'll have 90 days to find a new job before I get into some visa/immigration issues, so hopefully that's enough time to get another visa-sponsoring job, ideally one that isn't teaching English (but I'll do that if I get desperate). I'm going to live in a dorm or guesthouse/sharehouse in the suburbs (read: somewhere cheap) to start off with. A couple other teachers here are planning to move closer to Tokyo, and it would be fun to get to hang out with them there. I also know several other people in or near Tokyo, and am looking forward to being closer to them as well. I really hope it all works out, but if it doesn't--if I don't find anything, or I run out of money, or what--then I just have to come home and figure out my life from there. And that doesn't sound so bad. I can always self-study and try to go freelance as a pro translator from wherever I am. We'll see. I'm trying not to worry too much about sticking to rigid plans for my future, and just making decisions from the moment.
I'd also like to attend a Japanese program that starts next year, but it's very expensive and I didn't have much luck with the scholarships last year. I'm not feeling very motivated to try again this year, but I probably will give it a shot and see what happens.
I think the only thing I'm still not very fond of about life here is living alone in an apartment that's pretty geographically isolated from the other people I know, even though it's a fairly good location in the city. I don't like living alone, it makes me too nervous. But I have regular things that get me out of the apartment. I'm still going to yoga at my gym on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings, grabbing curry with the other teachers on Wednesdays (before yoga), and I've joined a Japanese class that meets on Thursday nights. It's just me and another ALT whose Japanese is near mine as students in the class, so the class is right at our level. Last time we went over the Japanese translation of Macbeth. I'm studying Japanese during my free periods at school and trying to get better about studying in my free time. The JLPT is in less than a month and I need to pass N2!
Other highlights from the past couple months:
- I got my first real paycheck, but they took almost all of it to pay for my apartment start-up costs. At the end of this month I'll get my first real FULL paycheck!
- doing a lot of shopping and ending up with a much more robust wardrobe of long-sleeved shirts and tights
- visiting many/most of the shrines in the area
- catching a couple gorgeous sunsets over the lake
- going to a hot springs bath attached to the hotel where we had our formal work dinner after the music festival before the dinner began; also going to the foot-only bath found outside a nearby train station
- watching the drum parade through the city
- sending some care packages home
- getting to know everyone here better
I'm going to Beppu in a couple weeks to visit my sister, and we're going to Thailand over Christmas! We're going to spend New Year's back in Japan, in Fukuoka. Excited!
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