6 months

As of last week, I have been in Japan for 6 months now. I'm halfway through my adventure. It's pretty hard to believe! I feel torn. As though, I just arrived but have also been here for eternity. Life here remains to be a constant roller coaster. Some days, I just don't want to leave Japan and some days I can barely leave my apartment because I feel so homesick. I have to admit though: I am in a much better place emotionally than I thought I would be at 6 months. I figured by the 6 month mark I would be over this whole experience. I would be homesick and stressed. I thought this would be my low point. While I do totally feel those things sometimes, I still have those wonderful moments when I have to pause, soak it all in, and just stand in disbelief thinking: THIS is my life. How amazing is it that I can just hang out in Tokyo when I feel like it. Call friends to go have a beer or go to karaoke. I may not have a million friends here, but I have learned to just travel by myself and be okay with it. I didn't expect that from myself. In America, I was a social butterfly. I always had friends to call or plans with my boyfriend. I never took myself out anywhere. After all, I thought, who goes to dinner and a movie by themselves? Maybe I've just grown to be more of a loner here. Maybe I just justify myself by thinking that I don't have many friends so what else am I supposed to do? Maybe I'm just more confident in myself. I was never the type of person to feel sorry for myself so I certainly wasn't going to let myself stay in all weekend and mope. I don't know if it just hasn't come yet, but I still don't feel like I've hit "the low point" with this job. I haven't just sat around all weekend sobbing from loneliness or just thrown my hands up at work and wanted to give up and go home. Is it sad that I would even expect that from myself? Or that I would expect every job that I have to make me feel that miserable? I'm kind of cautiously hopeful that I will never reach this point while I'm living here. It kind of makes me want to stay her for another year knowing how comfortable I am at the job. I genuinely enjoy it! But then, I remember all of the friends and family, people that I love, that I have for me back in Chicago and my heart aches. I miss everyone so much. I couldn't bear to be away for another year.

Let's do a quick rundown on some aspects of my time here.
1.) The job: I've really loved this job. I know a lot of my friends complain about it but I still think it is great. I get to work with a new group of kids everyday. About 75% of them even want to be there and want to learn. I've gotten used to the companies way of teaching things and can easily come up with lesson plans and props. I love it. I think it is a much better fit for me than my job in the States was. I also especially like not ever having to deal with parents lol
2.) Friends: While it has been MUCH more difficult than I thought it would be to make friends here, I do have a couple of good and wonderful people that I have befriended here. They are kind, adventurous, and open. We all are having common experiences with being foreigners in a strange land and that allows us to really bond I feel. I must admit though that this experience has really shown me how shy I can be. After college, you really don't have to try too hard to make new friends and I felt like I was rusty at it. I was shying away from people a reluctant to approach other foreigners who were just hanging out at the same bar as I was. I'm trying so hard to get out of my shell a bit more like I was in college and I've made a couple of new friends recently who have helped me feel more like I am accomplishing this goal. A part of this though is also that I have a boyfriend and many of the other foreign guys I meet are not looking for a friend. That shuts me off to meeting more new people right away. Let's just say this is still a work in progress.
3.) Travel: I've seen a lot of places and a lot of things. I'm pretty satisfied with where I have gone so far although I'm starting a list now of all the places I have yet to go and see. I hope this will motivate me to do more on the weekends.
4.) Language: This is one area that I am pretty disappointed in. I'm normally really good with languages. I can pick them up and understand then quickly. Hasn't been the case here. I just feel like I haven't learned much Japanese. I'm definitely happy that I can now understand at least all of the things that they ask you about at the convenience store but I most definitely cannot hold any semblance of a conversation in Japanese. I'm sure part of it is that I really am not exposed to too much Japanese. At work, everyone speaks English and I speak English all day. Surprisingly, I have learned to read a lot though! I think this is due to the trains. They have everything in English but sometimes I get bored and just start reading the signs in Japanese. I know somewhere between 150-200 kanji which is pretty impressive. A part of it is also my fault because I have not been actively studying...oh well...
5.) Food: What can I say about food? It's still awesome. I adore the food here. Japanese food rocks! I've tried so many new things and loved most of them. I'm pretty sure natto was the only unpleasant food experience I've had.

Achievement unlocked: Reading!

The day has finally come! I sat my butt down and studied hard and I finally know how to read some Japanese! You have no idea how much I as an adult took being able to read for granted. It was something I didn't even think about when I first moved here. I've been so frustrated that I could not do the simplest things like read a menu to figure out what I was eating or not knowing what kind of sauce I just bought at the grocery store. But, I finally conquered one of the Japanese reading/writing systems. I can now read katakana and I mean READ it. I didn't just memorize the symbols, I officially read a whole menu with no help from anyone :D It was an exciting moment for me. I'm clearly moving up in the world.

Here's a little bit of information about the Japanese writing systems. There are three different systems: katakana, hiragana, and kanji. I chose to learn katakana because it is used for "borrowed words" from other languages (namely English). This means that although I am struggling to learn Japanese, I can still understand the words I am reading because they are words like kohi (coffee) or hamubaga (hamburger) or rate (latte). Hiragana is kind of like the basic alphabet. It covers all of the basic sounds in Japanese and uses it to form words. This is taught to children before they can read kanji. I hope to conquer this next...The last and most complicated of the symbols is kanji. These are symbols derived from Chinese that represent many words and sounds. I actually have learned about 50 or so kanji from my day to day interactions. Things like "water", "day", "month", "book", or even the names of some local cities from the trains have all been burned into my brain as I see them at least one a week. I hope I can absorb more and would like to know at least 200 or so kanji before I leave.

Student Stories: that CRAZY baby...

I teach a wide range of age starting with 6 month olds (I only have one). This is a story of one of my babies. He's about a year and a half old and he is CRAZY. He climbs all over his mother, runs around screeching and babbling, touches everything. His poor mother always looks so tired. One of the funniest thing that he does in his fits of temporary insanity is runs into walls. We will be in the middle of a lesson and he will jump out of his mother's lap and runs straight into the wall while screaming. The kicker is that EVERY time he does this, he looks surprised that it hurts. I'm pretty sure most people already learned by a year and a half that slamming yourself into walls hurts. Not this kid. It's a shock every time. His mom and I are hoping that he learns some basic physics one day soon...

Student Stories: He has a catchphrase

Let me introduce another new segment! I've been meaning to put up some funny lost in translation/student moments from my experience teaching in Japan. Please enjoy the first installment of Student Stories featuring one of my favorite kids!

I have a student who on a weekly basis makes me nearly die laughing. He is a super fun and energetic kid in a small class (just him and a little girl). I think he wants to be an entertainer when he grows up because he is always trying to make people laugh and he has something every good Japanese comedian needs: a catchphrase. I kid you not. It's hilarious. He adds "baby" to the end of the most random sentences. Did I mention he's like 6 yrs old? Precious.
It started out as "Oh no, baby!" when he was first in class with me. Recently it has evolved. Here are my favorite new catchphrases from him:
~We sing a transitional song that basically just repeats the question "What's next?" four times. This was his response last week. "I don't know, baby. What's next?" I nearly died.
~ I asked him, "How are you?" He paused, smiled and replied "I'm happy, baby."
~We recently learned some phrases and vocabulary about body parts and injuries. He changed every phrase to "Oh baby! I hurt my fingers."
~He recently picked up from me the phrase "Winner!" which I will sometimes proclaim after a game. When he wins, he now yells "Winner, baby!", takes a victory lap, and then asks for a high five. The other girl in the class thinks it is hilarious and has now let him start winning games.
This is my life. Love this kid.

Work, the first month.

So it has been about one month since I started working as a NET (Native English Teacher)! I think that things have been going pretty well. The kids are generally nice. Just like back in the States, there are a couple who I would like to never have to teach again but that just comes with the territory of teaching. Let me explain my schedule a bit. I teach all levels of kids from babies (my youngest is about 9 months I think) to Junior high students and even a couple of parent classes. They are spaced out throughout the week. I have more than one of each level so, for example, I have three different baby classes in a one week period. Luckily, the company that I work for uses a textbook and has a curriculum. Other people are not so lucky! It took a little adjusting for me to go from having my own classroom with a set daily schedule to working in and out of classrooms (although I have kind of basically claimed two) and having a schedule that varies day by day.

When I first arrived, it was very hard for me to get adjusted to. This was mainly because I came in right as seminars and supplemental lessons were happening. They basically taught me all about the textbook in training and then said "But now, forget the textbook. You have seminars and supplementals coming up!". I was told to just do whatever I wanted. I had no problem thinking of lesson ideas but actually planning and doing about 6-8 lessons a day at different levels was tough. Now, we are back on the regular schedule and I would say things are going much more smoothly. 

I think my biggest challenges have been organization and parent communication. Most days, it seriously looks like a tornado hit right after I have taught a class! I'm getting much better at this though. It helps me a lot that I bought some binders. I never thought I would be a binder person, but hey, you do what you must to survive. I also wish that I could really talk to parents sometimes. The majority of them don't really understand English. I have a lesson explanation after ever lesson but I always get the vague feeling that they don't really know what I'm saying. It can be really awkward sometimes.

The biggest advantages and celebrations I've had with this job have been with the variety of levels and energy of the classes. I LOVE being able to teach all age ranges again. Don't get me wrong, I loved my middle schoolers but there is always something wonderful about working with 4 yr olds and some other age groups. It adds some fun variety to the day! I also enjoy the pace and energy of the lessons. Since I teach at a conversation school, I only see my kids once a week. We spend time playing vocabulary and conversation games. It's a lot of fun to get to do that everyday. Although it can be taxing. I think I may develop a love for coffee while I'm here...

Work week 1

Okay, so this week was the first week that I had to teach lessons all by myself. It was very stressful but still fun. I had plenty of late nights planing and making props. I thought that this job would be very simple. There are not many people working for this company that have actual teaching degrees and in a way it is. I can come up with lesson ideas and whatnot pretty quickly. The thing I didn't expect was all the "prop" making. Basically, all the materials are not provided for us. So, for example, this week I had to teach a lesson about the months and days of the week. Pretty simple topic to teach kids. However, I had to make or buy anything like a calender that I wanted to use. Now, I'm not complaining. There are worse situations to be in. At least the company that I work for has a curriculum already in place instead of just telling me to do whatever. I just wasn't expected coloring to play such a major role in teaching English overseas. I'm sure I will find more resourceful and efficient ways to work around this but for now, a lot of my time is spent working on these props. On the plus side, I'm still in the honeymoon stage with my kids so I enjoy them a lot! One of them even wrote me a hello letter:

It will be very nice to relax this weekend! Hoping to get to a movie tomorrow. I'll let you know how similar and different things are between Japan and the States.