Haru ni naru
Yatta! The weather is warming up, finally. I know this because I can no longer see my breath in my apartment. And so I say goodbye to winter (and good riddance!) and hopefully goodbye to the enormous funk I've found myself in for the past few months.
A lot has happened recently. I'll start with some fabulous news. For those of you who are not familiar with the Japanese school system, here is a bit of background information. The school year officially ends in March. At this time, all teachers wait on pins and needles to see if they will be transferred to another school. If they are transferred they have less than two weeks to pack up their belongings, tie up loose ends, and (if the new school is far) relocate to a new town or apartment. As you can imagine, its a time of extraordinary stress and the results can have substantial impact on their families. For example, there is a man who works at my school right now. He lives here in town but his wife and small children live in Matsuyama city (about 1.5 hours away by car, twice as long by bus/train but the last bus leaves town at 6-ish and most teachers don't leave school until 8-ish). He only sees his family on the weekends. Crazy, huh?
Anyway, my good news is that my FAVORITE teacher originally had a 99% chance of being transferred. He has been working at the same high school for nine years now which is unheard of (usually each teacher is forced to move every 2-3 years). Well, Kamada-sensei made the cut and he will stay at Ikata JHS for a record tenth year. Hurray! This is really good news for me because a good JTE can make or break your experience at school. Sorry to all of you who met him at the midyear conference and hoped for a chance to work with him.
But wait...there is more. The JTE who made me crazy this year, the world's most lazy, obnoxious, offensive and physically repulsive (don't ask, the stories just aren't appropriate for publication) man in the whole world was transferred. I can't believe my good fortune. Seriously, the man is terrible. And to make matters worse, he is a vice-principal. Despite my best attempts to improve the situation (I even called a 1-1 meeting with him which isn't really done around here) he continued to drive me crazy. Well, now he can drive somebody else crazy.
In short, I went from losing the best teacher in the prefecture and being stuck with this ninny to my best-case scenario. I really lucked out.
My other good news is that I passed the i-kyuu (first level) kendo test in Yawatahama. I was the only non-Japanese person to take the test as one of the judges who administered it delighted in mentioning...over and over and over again. Sheesh, talk about pressure. It can really drive you crazy to be regarded as a nationality instead of as an individual. And I'm not incredibly good at Kendo so it was even more nerve-wracking to have to "represent". But in the end, I did it. Apparently, to everyone's astonishment (particularly the "head" sensei who came to observe), I did it well. You see, out of 1000 attempts I've been able to execute a proper kote-men combination only once. Fortunately, this one time was during my test.
Again, I lucked out.
I'm hoping to run this little wave of good luck as far as I can. Yesterday I received a little unfortunate news from home but I'm determined to manage it well. For those of you who don't know, several members of my family have been battling serious health issues for a while. On top of all the normal difficulties of life in Japan, and the physical and emotional distance from friends/family back home, bad news from home is just the kind of thing that can propel one into a state of intense, hellishly introspective self-doubt about your decision to remain in Japan for a third year. Which has happened recently. But it didn't happened yesterday. Thats a good sign, right?
So, there you have it. Hope you all are enjoying the slight turn in weather, except for those of you still battling the winter blahs in Chicago (did I hear something about "snow showers" this weekend???). I'm going out for a bike ride in the mountains!
A lot has happened recently. I'll start with some fabulous news. For those of you who are not familiar with the Japanese school system, here is a bit of background information. The school year officially ends in March. At this time, all teachers wait on pins and needles to see if they will be transferred to another school. If they are transferred they have less than two weeks to pack up their belongings, tie up loose ends, and (if the new school is far) relocate to a new town or apartment. As you can imagine, its a time of extraordinary stress and the results can have substantial impact on their families. For example, there is a man who works at my school right now. He lives here in town but his wife and small children live in Matsuyama city (about 1.5 hours away by car, twice as long by bus/train but the last bus leaves town at 6-ish and most teachers don't leave school until 8-ish). He only sees his family on the weekends. Crazy, huh?
Anyway, my good news is that my FAVORITE teacher originally had a 99% chance of being transferred. He has been working at the same high school for nine years now which is unheard of (usually each teacher is forced to move every 2-3 years). Well, Kamada-sensei made the cut and he will stay at Ikata JHS for a record tenth year. Hurray! This is really good news for me because a good JTE can make or break your experience at school. Sorry to all of you who met him at the midyear conference and hoped for a chance to work with him.
But wait...there is more. The JTE who made me crazy this year, the world's most lazy, obnoxious, offensive and physically repulsive (don't ask, the stories just aren't appropriate for publication) man in the whole world was transferred. I can't believe my good fortune. Seriously, the man is terrible. And to make matters worse, he is a vice-principal. Despite my best attempts to improve the situation (I even called a 1-1 meeting with him which isn't really done around here) he continued to drive me crazy. Well, now he can drive somebody else crazy.
In short, I went from losing the best teacher in the prefecture and being stuck with this ninny to my best-case scenario. I really lucked out.
My other good news is that I passed the i-kyuu (first level) kendo test in Yawatahama. I was the only non-Japanese person to take the test as one of the judges who administered it delighted in mentioning...over and over and over again. Sheesh, talk about pressure. It can really drive you crazy to be regarded as a nationality instead of as an individual. And I'm not incredibly good at Kendo so it was even more nerve-wracking to have to "represent". But in the end, I did it. Apparently, to everyone's astonishment (particularly the "head" sensei who came to observe), I did it well. You see, out of 1000 attempts I've been able to execute a proper kote-men combination only once. Fortunately, this one time was during my test.
Again, I lucked out.
I'm hoping to run this little wave of good luck as far as I can. Yesterday I received a little unfortunate news from home but I'm determined to manage it well. For those of you who don't know, several members of my family have been battling serious health issues for a while. On top of all the normal difficulties of life in Japan, and the physical and emotional distance from friends/family back home, bad news from home is just the kind of thing that can propel one into a state of intense, hellishly introspective self-doubt about your decision to remain in Japan for a third year. Which has happened recently. But it didn't happened yesterday. Thats a good sign, right?
So, there you have it. Hope you all are enjoying the slight turn in weather, except for those of you still battling the winter blahs in Chicago (did I hear something about "snow showers" this weekend???). I'm going out for a bike ride in the mountains!
posted by Angie @ 12:39 AM
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