9:36pmI can’t believe that’s the date. I cannot believe I’ve already been here for almost three weeks, but at the same time my life back home seems a million years away. I’m in this strange sort of limbo right now. I’ll explain myself in a minute.
My first week at the school was… well, intense. I observed all of Arden’s classes on Tuesday, applied for my alien registration and got set up at the bank. Arden and I went out for dinner at this little Italian restaurant where they have 1.00 glasses of wine. hi, heaven. Anyways, I was up ridiculously late planning my one lesson I had to teach the next day. Then I had to teach two the day after that, etc. etc. Basically you don’t get out of the school until like 8:30, so you’re home by quarter to 9 and then you make dinner and don’t get to start lesson planning until 9:30’ish and then you’re up all night. My classes that week went… well, not as planned. I taught the last class of the day on Thursday and then went in the bathroom and cried. I almost cried right in the middle of teaching three junior high students. At this point I was ready to give up, teaching was not for me. I had never wanted to be a teacher and that lesson proved to me why I shouldn’t be. I didn’t completely screw something up or do anything horribly drastic, I just sucked. Plain and simple. I couldn’t make them understand me, nor could I make them want to. It was a blow to both my ego and to my decision making skills. Regardless I continued on and improved with every one. Arden says she usually plans her lessons a week ahead of time, using the breaks when we’re not teaching to plan lessons and make props etc. as we shouldn’t have to do them at home. Unfortunately, only finding out our teaching schedule upon arrival, as well as using our non-teaching hours to do running around for banks and cell phones and alien registrations took that time away from us and placed lesson planning only in the evening after work. Saturday was Arden and Dawn’s last day at the school, so we, along with Mike, two of the JTs (Japanese Teachers from my school) and Dawn and Arden’s Japanese friend Mika went out for drinks at a cool little pub called New York Roots. They make the most amazing Long Island Iced teas (who woulda thought?) They measure them out meticulously and include about 6 shots of who the hell knows and taste delicious and cost about 10 bucks and you only need two before you’re unable to hold your chopsticks anymore. Needless to say we were there for more than two, (minus Mike and the two JTs who left early, a.k.a. party poopers, a.k.a. Mike doesn’t drink, a.k.a. he’s living beside me for a year and doesn’t drink and WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?) anyways, Dawn, Arden, Mika and I had a hilarious night and soon the two adorable bartenders and two of their friends and joined our table. Soon after we were stumbling out to take photo stickers at the arcade, but as we were passing my apartment, I yearned for my bed (I know you will all be shocked at this as I’m always the one who always wants to go anywhere but home or to bed) so I bid everyone adieu and managed up the intense flight of stairs and awoke early the next morning to jehovas witnesses knocking on my door. Lukily I pulled the “I only speak English card” which is a good way of getting rid of anyone in Japan, choked down two aleves to soothe the pounding headache which I had never felt anything like in the history of my mornings after, and went back to bed until about 11:30. I don’t know what it is, I never ever got hangovers in Canada, now Japan I wake up the next morning feeling like I was run over 45 times by a school bus full of people going to fat camp. I then went to the dollar store where I spent like two hours shopping for things for my apartment (which is still not even close to being finished- decorating I mean) and then grocery shopping which was interesting since I pretty much didn’t know what anything was, nor could I read the labels. I managed though, and then went home to decorate, make a delicious dinner of tuna which I marinated in a lemon sauce (that I made myself) with salad and drank a bottle of wine and watched amelie. It was pretty nice. Mike and I spent Monday planning lessons all day so that we wouldn’t have to do so late at night every day after work.
I woke up Tuesday morning severely depressed. I cried in the shower, the first time I really seriously cried since I got here. I don’t know what it was, but all I could think of was how alone I was. How now that Arden and Dawn were gone, I really had noone around me to hang out with. Kanika and I have plans to meet up this weekend, but she lives about a half hour train ride away from me. I felt so unbelievably lonely. I hated this city (it’s very small, close to a huge city, Nagoya, but again, about a half hour away, and this actual city, Okazaki, is very small town). I knew I pretty much had zero chance of meeting someone else my age that I could actually talk to, or hold a conversation with without having to pronounce every single letter in every single word I said and talking half the speed I normally do. I hated the city, I hated my job, I hated myself for making the decision to come here and thinking it was the best idea ever. All I could think about was everyone back home, and my home and how happy I was before I left. It wasn’t so much that I was homesick, I was just unhappy with where I was and the reality of it all. It wasn’t at all what I had thought it would be, and I wanted to give up. I started thinking of ways I could get out of my one year contract, and as much as I hate giving up all I could think of was how long a year was and how there was no way I could make it here that long. I started thinking of ways I could at least save enough money to go home for the ten day vacation I have in December. Screw Thailand, I thought, I just want to go home. I went to school that morning, my first day of teaching every single class and I had a completely amazing day. All of my classes went so well, the kids and I got along great and I really felt like a good teacher. I don’t know what had changed since my prior week, but all of a sudden I was comfortable and confident and in return so were my students. I came home in an incredible mood and made a delicious chicken stir fry. I had a really difficult time falling asleep though. I had another really good day today, and I know I’ll be able to do this job and do it well. It is so completely exhausting though. This is the first night I’ve had the time and the energy to just sit and write. Even on my days off, all I wanted to do was sit. But at the same time, sitting in, drinking a bottle of wine by myself, ended up making me feel horribly depressed.I still don’t really know how I feel about my situation here. Really, I don’t have time for anything else during the week. You basically just throw yourself into your work, come home, eat, do a little something for yourself (read, write, watch a movie) sleep and get up and do the same thing. I guess I’m sort of worried about my weekends. Seeing Kanika this weekend will definitely help, and I talked to Justin which really made me feel good and I can’t wait to see him, although, again, he lives so far from me. It’s just, my location is sort of forcing me to be this entirely different person and I don’t know how I feel about that. I’m not a loner, nor am I someone who spends her nights in by herself. I want to write every single one of my friends and tell them to come visit me because I still don’t know if I can make it a year here, or at least a year without them. especially my parents. I’d kill to see my mom and dad at least once before next September. I’m so back and forth about everything. I’m happy with everything and then it’s like as soon as I’m alone in my apartment I think I made the worst decision in coming here. I know it’s only been three weeks and so much can change, and who knows I may be happy as hell in a month and it’s too early to judge, but all I know is how I feel right now, and what I feel is completely unsure. I’ve also been thinking about a boy back home. Which is so stupid of me because I’m here and he’s there, and I’m here for a year. I guess timing is everything and it totally wasn’t right for us but I cant help thinking about it at the time as much as I don’t want to. I’ll come back and he’ll be like married or something. who knows. I feel so stupid admitting this. I get really sad everytime I check my phone and I don’t have any new emails or when I hope someone will call me, just so I can talk to someone who a) can speak English really well or b) I have things in common with. It’s either one or the other here. Not having the internet doesn’t help much either. I’m pretty much cut off from the world and my friends ands that’s a pretty shitty feeling. I work for pretty much 10 hours every day. I work through my lunches so that I don’t have to take work home, I show up a half hour early and stay a half hour later just so I can get everything I need to do, done. We don’t get paid overtime for that either. We work on salary, the only time we get overtime is if we have an abundance of teaching hours. Its bullshit really, I know, but seriously, the happiest I seem to be is when I’m actually teaching. As much as I can’t wait to get home and into pyjamas and just sit, that’s when I start thinking. So like I said, if I just throw myself into my job, the weeks go by. Oh also, I’ve definitely started losing weight, Im hardly ever hungry and all I eat is healthy crap and I pretty much don’t wear makeup or do anything with my hair other than a ponytail with pinned up bangs because there’s nobody here to impress. so this is the life I lead now. Wow. this was a pretty depressing entry, I’m really not like falling apart or anything, like I said, I’m in this sort of limbo, I don’t really know how I feel about everything right now. I’ll write about Japan and Okazaki itself soon. I just needed to get this off my chest. Also, the new Tegan and Sara album basically describes my entire life right now. Buy it, listen to it. I listen to every day at least three times and it breaks my heart every time. “I listened in, yes I’m guilty of this, you should know this.I broke down and wrote you back before you had the chance to.Forget forgotten, I am moving past this, giving notice.I have to go, yes I know that feeling, know you’re leaving.….A million hours left to think of you and think of that.”- The Con, Tegan and Sara “The pressure of this life is so you can’t be held accountable. If you go, you go.”- Are you Ten Years Ago, Tegan and Sara “I’m moving east then, somewhere far away from the sight of my hands, the sight of me not moving.You can’t just hop a plane and come and visit me again.…You take a second, take a year, you took me out and took me in and told me all of this.”- Hop a Plane, Tegan and Sara “Oh and I’m feeling directionless yes,but that’s to be expected and I know that best.And in creeps the morning and another day’s lost. You’ve just written wondering and I reply fast.All you need to save me.Call and I’ll be curled on the floor hiding out from it all.And I won’t take any other calls.I feel like a fool so I’m going to stop troubling you.Buried in my yard, a letter to send to you.And if I forget…. I hope that you’ll hear me, know that I wrote to you”- Soil, Soil, Tegan and Sara “I felt you in my legs before I ever met you.And when I laid beside you for the first time I told you,I feel you in my heart and I don’t even know you.And now we’re saying bye.…I felt you in my life before I ever thought to,feel the need to lay down beside you and tell you.…call me.Flew home back to where we met.Stayed inside I was so upset.I was yours right?”- Nineteen, Tegan and Sara “I want your lungs to stop working without me.I think about writing you,I thought about calling you.What was I looking for? What am I looking for?… I shouldn’t go but I cant really help it when I feel this pressure.” –Floorplan, Tegan and Sara “Everything I love, get back from me now.Everyone I love, I need you now.Don’t forget a million miles from me.…Hold out for the ones you know will love you.”- Dark come soon, Tegan and Sara “Maybe I would have been something you’d be good at.Maybe you would have been something I’d be good at.But now we’ll never know.I won’t be sad but in case, I’ll go there every day to make myself feel bad.There’s a chance I’ll start to wonder if this was the thing to do.”- Call it off, Tegan and sara
