Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Sho ga nai.

I feel as if my posts are being extremely restricted lately. School is in full swing, and with teachers always in the staffroom, and with no internet at home, it`s hard to find the time to put anything meaningful on here.
I was talking with my girlfriend back home the other day, and I realized that I am just switching back and forth between extremes all the time. This makes for the "up in the air" feeling that I seem to be constantly dealing with. One moment I just can`t fathom how I`ll survive a year alone here (the internet will undoubtedly help...probably, will fix the problem I`m discussing). Twenty minutes later, I`m all smiles and I`m enjoying the Japanese experience. Either class is fun and encouraging, or it`s boring and disheartening and hard.
Also, I am a little bit worried that I might some kind of health issues, possibly related to the stress of moving here, and introducing myself 300 times, and all the social anxieties that are amplified by not understanding anyone. In any case, today I felt horrible after waking up. I usually do. I almost always feel nauseous and tired - I have for about as long as I can remember. Anyway, today it was so bad, and I could hardly eat the half a bowl of cereal I had poured for myself.
Once my days starts, however, it usually subsides. Today, my stomach still feels no good, and I still feel very tired, but I`m a million times better than this morning. I really hope that I`m not giving myself an ulcer, or something. That would be, most likely, a bad thing.

Anyway, teaching has been fine so far; if anything, I am really worried about being bored out of my mind or unhappy every day, but having to smile and be enthusiastic about teaching simple material. Especially when I will teach the same lessons several times a day, every day for the year. (Then again, maybe elementary school is worse in this way from Junior high. I have more classes, they`re simpler, and they`re certainly more repetitive).

I did the math. With all the different schools I will visit in the coming semester, I will have to introduce myself between 200 and 250 times. Talk about boring.
My introduction is mostly falsified anyway. ...Perhaps more on that later.

Oh! And today was my first weiner-touching incident. I hate little japanese boys. Apparently, it`s totally okay here to touch another man`s weiner while you are shaking hands. They quit once I pulled their hands away, and they realized I was scowling.

2 comments:

Tara said...

I was for some reason under the impression you had a more permanent teaching gig. I can't believe you're going to so many different schools. It sounds incredibly daunting.

Anonymous said...

I told Mike (you know... Mike) about your wiener touching story, and he says, totally dry with a little smirk on his face, "So, he went all the way to Japan for a hand job? He could have gone to Indonesia and gotten more than that from little kids."