Not a great day

Yesterday I had a stomach ache for most of the day. I blame the peculiar spring rolls that I got from the convenience store. As a result, I had a fairly light dinner, and I almost didn’t practice violin, but as it was getting late I felt better and managed to get a bit of practice in.

After that I read Japanese for about half an hour, with lots of enjoyment. I used an app that is aimed at lower intermediate learners, so I knew at least 95% of the content and thus I could read it almost like English. The app costs money so I just read the sample articles, but I think I’ll subscribe to the service for a month or two and see if I can read everything.

From there I read a fanfiction about a Harry Potter who had trouble living normally but was obsessed with transfiguration and was something of a prodigy. It was one of the funniest fanfictions I’ve ever read, and quite enjoyable. The author made several good points that I haven’t heard before, like “why would Harry disdain his relatives for being so normal, and then go to wizarding school and want to be as normal as possible?” The fanfiction is still in Harry’s second year but it updated three months ago so it might not be dead yet.

Today I wasn’t very hungry in the morning so I skipped my oatmeal. And I regret it. I’m very sleepy and hungry, which is kind of a strange combination. Fortunately I only had one class. It was a frustrating one though. The student that I worked with was being very slow, and I thought it was intentional because he’s quite smart, but now I suspect that he was just sleepy. The other teacher apparently didn’t have enough to do with keeping the other three students occupied, so he kept watching me teach, which made me a bit uncomfortable. This other teacher (who is part time and only teaches two classes, both with me) is a rather peculiar individual. His social skills are a bit off, and he also does some rather air-headed things. He’s very slow at a lot of things, and he doesn’t seem to have much experience teaching, even though that’s apparently his profession. All that to say, while I think he’s a nice guy, I don’t have a lot of respect for him as a teacher.

First he asked if he could translate things into Japanese for the student. This seemed mostly pointless to me since the student was responding appropriately, so I told him to go ahead even though I was probably visibly affronted. So he backed off. Then at one point the student was refusing to respond to me and I got frustrated and told the other teacher that the student wasn’t responding. The other teacher proceeded to tell the student all the answers to write down, and then told me that his response was good, and to continue like this. “So,” I asked, “I just tell him all the answers?” He replied affirmatively, probably indicating that he hadn’t really understood my question. So I got irritated. But anyway, after that the student did quite well even without me telling him the answer, so I think he was just confused about how to answer those questions (which is really not to bad, because they were basically translation problems). So now I have to wonder why I got upset.

Also since then I’ve been complaining internally about how much I don’t like this school and thinking about how great my school was last year. I’ve got a really negative attitude, and it’s a bad thing. How can I change my attitude about it? The teachers aren’t very friendly—I could try talking to them (but when? They’re so busy…). And I’m more busy myself.

Work Troubles

I haven’t written much for the past few days even though I have felt better. Mainly I haven’t done much worth writing about. Wednesday I managed to practice violin a little bit longer, and Thursday I spent a good amount of time studying Japanese. On the other hand, yesterday I spent a little too long yesterday playing games (some Factorio but also Sudoku), and I woke up before 5 this morning and played more then. Now I’m feeling lethargic and unmotivated, and I’m not too happy about my current job either.

The elementary school is great. My co-teacher there always provides lesson plans and meets with homeroom teachers, including me when possible, but she also doesn’t take up all of my time. The homeroom teachers are all kind, and mostly nice to teach with too.

It’s the junior high school that I feel bad about. The head of the English department there is great, and I enjoy teaching with her. She makes reasonable requests and I feel that she uses me effectively in the classroom.

The other teachers are more difficult. The youngest teacher has some really good ideas so I like his classes, but I get the feeling that he doesn’t like having me in the classroom. He frequently cancels our lessons, and he’s not very personable. I can only remember having one conversation with him that wasn’t immediately related to class. I think my introductory slideshow impressed him, but after that he asked me to make a slideshow for him, and I think it didn’t turn out very well. Since then he has only had me come to class a handful of times, doing as little as possible.

The third teacher is new to the school, and I only have one regular class with her plus occasional classes with the special needs classes. The regular class is a bit painful because her teaching style is very Japanese-based (even though she gives a lot of English instruction). The worst part is that she frequently asks me questions without having prepared me. I’m getting used to this though. In the larger special class, there are many students and her expectations are beyond my comprehension, which frustrates us both. Furthermore, she makes frequent requests that are sometimes vague or sometimes (I feel) unreasonable. She’s generally nice, but sometimes the way she interacts with me gives me the feeling that she sees me as an unmotivated student rather than a co-worker and co-teacher.

Only one of the other teachers even talk to me, so it's pretty lonely.

Tired

Despite sleeping fairly well last night (at least 7 hours) and similarly the night before, I was tired for most of the day. Nevertheless, I stayed motivated through the majority of it. I taught third graders at Seba today--they're super cute, and they mob me like first graders any time they can get away with it. Hayakawa-sensei was at Seba today. I don't agree with a lot of her ideas, but if she were ten-fifteen years younger I would be very attracted to her, I think.

After work I went out and bought a VGA cable to connect my laptop to my TV. I struggled and got it set up, and then played Factorio for about ten minutes before getting bored. I ended up messaging several people on OKCupid, and then job searching. One job I found was a kindergarten English curriculum developer. Based in Tokyo unfortunately, but the salary started much higher than my current one, and it sounds like an interesting job. Most translation jobs seem to be hourly, which would present a visa issue. I should keep looking.

Possibly what I'm most motivated to work on right now is my Japanese. But I still need a plan. Also, I'm sleepy. I tend to come up with a lot of plans (albeit not very good ones) when I'm trying to sleep.

Recovery

More or less since Golden Week I've been having difficulty living.  I’m frustrated that I’m in a dead-end job, and I don’t feel like I can find a job with better prospects. I’ve been seriously thinking about marriage for ten years and yet I feel like I haven’t really changed my approach and therefore I don’t have much hope for anything new in that regard. I don’t do what I want to do or feel like I should do because I’m lazy, and I’m tired of struggling because I never really get anywhere. Social interaction almost consistently makes me feel remorseful, so I have to push myself to do it and I’m sick of it. On top of that, I'm frustrated with my relationship with God. I don't read the Bible because there's too much that I don't understand, and then I get frustrated with praying because I feel like I'm not doing it right or consistently or I once again don't understand so much.

Last weekend I felt a bit better, maybe partially because of the company party, but then on Friday I had a slightly stressful day so I came home and went straight to bed, and more or less stayed there until Sunday afternoon. I felt a bit better on Sunday afternoon, but I was very hungry because I had barely eaten, so I went to the supermarket. When I got back, I was tired and almost just as bad off as I had been in the morning. I did manage to talk to my parents, but I suspect that it was a bit rough for them.

I had a fairly unremarkable day at work, but I did feel more driven than I have in a while. When I got home I even pulled out my violin, which hasn't seen the light since Golden Week. I ended up getting frustrated with how out of tune I was and put it down within 20 minutes. Next I played Factorio for about an hour, and then I stopped and had some kind of revelation.

My problems, excepting the spiritual ones, stem from a lack of social confidence. Well okay, and also a lack of drive at times to pursue my goals. But social confidence ties into that as well because if I felt that my lack of skills were the only thing preventing me from getting a computer job or improving my Japanese, then I would be more motivated. As it is, the intimidation of job hunting and starting a new job is probably just as demotivating if not more than laziness. As far as Japanese goes, while the certification is a great practical goal, it's the prospect of daily conversation that motivates me to actually follow through with studying outside of the three-weeks-before-the-exam panic.

One thing that probably contributes to my recent depression is fanfiction. I really enjoy fanfiction--it's easy to read, exciting, fun, free, and easily accessible. But many of the stories that I like to read often have protagonists with unrealistically idealized social situations. They're always very smart and talented, and therefore notable and attractive. These stories make my normal life undesirable in comparison. Furthermore, I've felt for a long time that people are the most important thing, but by being unable to connect with them, I've classified myself as something of a failure.

So then, what if I practice social confidence? That's not really something I've done before. I've resolved to do better, but I've never actually had a plan. I don't know what the plan would be yet--maybe something like initiating a conversation with two people every day. Wow, that would be rough, but I think it would be possible. I don't think it's enough just to do something though--my mindset needs to change too.

How about my job situation? So for a while I was thinking that I would try to become a teacher in Japan, but aside from the inherent difficulty of being a public school educator in a foreign country, there's also apparently an oversaturation of teachers, and the job has very long hours including some weekends, and the prefecture (which is the employer) can move teachers around however they please, and tend to do so frequently.

I haven't done a ton of research about private education in Japan, but from what I've seen the only way to make it lucrative is to start one's own business, something that probably requires more willpower than I possess. Thus, if I'm going to stay in Japan, I'll have to find a new sector of employment. Translation is a possibility that I need to investigate. I've actually seen several game translation jobs, which I think I would be good at but I'd really prefer not to work in the game industry on principle. Anyway, so that's one option. My original plan was to work in software development. Although there definitely are jobs in that area, almost all the ones I've seen that request foreigners are located in Tokyo. I suppose I might ask myself if living in Tokyo is worse than living in America. I'm not sure of the answer--maybe I'll have to visit with that in mind.

Wow, it's a novel, but I think I feel better. It might be time to write out some more goals, but honestly I don't think they've really changed since the last time I wrote them (and maybe not even compared to the time before that).