School Festival Day 1

I’m a little annoyed with myself for not chatting with Liberty after all. So I didn’t make the deadline, and I still haven’t heard from them after four business days. It seems I need to send them another email. I have been asleep by 10:00 most nights, and tired before then so I haven’t tried chatting. I’m a little worried that they might try to charge me an admission fee when I finally get them to look at my application, which would be a ridiculous result, but possible. Also, in the unlikely situation that I can’t transfer any credits, my late admission could potentially have an effect on my job prospects.

Today I went to my junior high school’s school festival, day one, which included a short kind of field day. The field day was a little long, but exciting. First, an entire class (25-35 students) jumped the same long jump-rope together to see how many times they could do it consecutively. The winning class made it to 50 times. They then challenged the teachers to beat them. I had never done it before, and some other teachers hadn’t done it in a long time. We made it to 12, so it was a bad loss.

Next there was an interesting kind of relay race, with each class competing against the other two in the same year. The races involved finding and running with a teacher, five people tied together in a vertical line, a sack race, a three-legged race, and running while jumping rope. Then the last event was a normal relay, in which every student ran, so it was rather long but still exciting.

I went climbing last night. I feel kind of adrift when I’m at home, but there is lots of cleaning to do, and today I need to cook a fairly involved meal.

Sick Weekend

Lately I’ve cut down on my caffeine consumption. I drink coffee maybe once a week, and on the other days I usually drink matcha tea flavored milk. It has caffeine in it too, but though I haven’t actually checked how much, I’m certain that it’s less than coffee. Today I tried a special caramel Starbucks coffee, which was kind of disgusting. It went pretty well with my oatmeal though. After I drank it (only 100ml!) I was very shaky for the first half of the morning. Not sure if that was because it was strong, had a lot of sugar, or I’ve just become more sensitive. I’m thinking that in the near future I will revert to drinking tea, but for now I’ll stick to my matcha milk.

I was sick this weekend. That was kind of good because it meant that I didn’t feel guilty about not going to Niigata and doing rice harvesting. It was also bad because it meant that I missed out on some Matsumoto fun, climbing, and it threw off my routine a bit, plus the general misery of feeling sick. However, on Saturday I spent the whole day either sleeping or reading Japanese, so I felt like I was fairly productive. Sunday and Monday (a holiday) I mostly played a city building video game, but by Monday night I decided that this game had some rather silly goals and I lost my motivation to continue playing.

That evening I started re-reading a Star Wars/Harry Potter crossover called The Havoc Side of the Force. It was really good, and I ended up staying up until 3:30 reading it, and continuing in my free time at school the next day as well. Then on Tuesday, I went to sleep at 8. I woke up at 2:30 when there was a loud sound, and spent a miserable hour coughing, sneezing, and blowing my nose, but went to sleep again at 4, so I got a decent amount of sleep. A lot of students at my school are sick, though.

Liberty still hasn’t answered my emails about my admissions. I’m going to try to chat with them tonight, but it’s a last minute effort that probably won’t yield any fruit. Hopefully it won’t make any difference, though—as long as I get my two classes transferred, it doesn’t matter if I don’t get accepted until December.

I was inspired on Friday to look into dancing again. It seems quite difficult, and I’m not sure that I have a place to practice, but I really want to try working on it. First I think I’ll see what I can do just in my room at home, which will mean reorganizing. That’s okay—I feel like my current configuration has worn out its welcome. I really need to do some cleaning, so if I can pull that off on Monday, that would be ideal.

Weekend result: unsatisfactory

I was so hyped this past weekend that if I hadn't known better I would have thought that I had too much coffee or maybe even some kind of drug. On Saturday I studied a bit in the morning, then I went to the sports festival of one of my elementary schools. It was the best sports festival I’ve attended, but I think the primary reason for that was because it was short. Instead of having an event for every grade and several combined events, all the events that I saw involved combined grades. Ah, except for one, which replaced the tug-of-war. Instead they had several bamboo poles that each team tried to pull all the way to their side. Once the pole was clearly captured, the pullers could then join another group in trying to pull. However, the poles weren’t long enough for more than twenty or so kids to grab, and the kids tended to trip and fall, so it was amusing as well as exciting.

The rest of the weekend is kind of a blur. I climbed on Saturday, and it was good (I climbed with my friend Funatsu-san) but I didn’t do anything particularly great. Sunday I was set on going to church, and then somehow the time came and went. Instead, I went for the first time to the Japanese class that takes place in Shiojiri. I was given a newspaper article and struggled through it with one other student. The article was about the importance of a balanced diet, so it was interesting to me, but had several difficult words and phrases. Our teacher was a former nutritionist, so that was neat.

I cooked lunch and thought about going back to the gym for a second day in a row. I probably should have, especially considering I can’t go today since it was a holiday yesterday. But anyway, I cooked lunch, then ended up going to the store and buying ingredients to cook dinner as well. Oh, I went to the library for two hours and tried to study. It didn’t go very well. I did meet some of my junior high students, which was cool. Mom helped me figure out the ideal course schedule for going to Liberty.

On Monday I applied to Liberty and sent my transcripts. I also practiced violin and studied Japanese at home. That was pretty much my whole day. It wasn’t very productive. I wanted to go biking, but couldn’t find the motivation. I had also meant to do some programming, but it completely slipped my mind. Well, at least I didn’t play any Factorio. I played an idle browser game, but it’s very casual so I think I can ignore it or stop without difficulty.

So in Japan alcohol isn’t nearly as taboo as in America, even for younger students. Several homeroom teachers have mentioned drinking beer in front of the class. Also, one of the students last week was wearing a shirt that advertised beer.

I’m a little worried about money when I go home. Since I will need to take 9 credits every semester, I won’t have much time for a job, which means I won’t have much income. I want to take the first electrician class too, so that will cut down on my time even more (speaking of which, I should try emailing GTCC to find out if it’s even possible). If I only had to worry about tuition it wouldn’t be a problem, but I will likely need to procure a vehicle, which won’t be cheap, and I think it would be ideal to be able to pay rent to my parents—maybe $150/month. If my tuition costs $15k, then $2k in rent, that means I need to buy a car and pay for gas as well as extra stuff with the rest, which at the moment is looking to be about $6k. It’s possible, but tight.

Cooling down

I haven’t done very well with my writing recently. Wednesday was extremely hot, and even though I wasn’t told that I could go home, I went ahead and left. To be honest, I think I have received permission to leave early on Wednesday, because the teacher used to tell me almost every week and she stopped after telling my boss that this was established. Anyway, so I’ll probably leave early on Wednesday from now on if I feel comfortable doing so.

Yesterday was really nice and temperate, and then I think it got into the mid-teens last night. I slept very well. Also, I went climbing with Corali. Well, she only stayed for about an hour, but it was nice to have someone to climb with for a bit. Overall I had a really good session. I successfully climbed two of the blue problems on A wall that gave me lots of trouble when I originally tried them. So I would say that I’m very close to the level that I was back in April. >.> I also nearly completed the long problem on A wall—I got to hold 35 out of 37.

I really need to try to reserve a stay at the farm in Niigata to do rice harvesting. I’m sure it would be a great experience. But now it seems that no one will come with me, so I’ve lost most of my motivation. I also thought about going to Ueda, but I realized today that I forgot to order the holder for my bike that would allow me to pack it more safely should I decide to come back by train. I might just end up spending the weekend studying. I realized today that I only have 2.5 months left until the test. Ugh, with the lack of progress that I feel I’ve made, it almost seems like a waste to even buy a train ticket.

On Monday I made a to-do list for my memory program, trying to break down each feature as much as possible. But in the end, every night I’ve either forgotten or felt too tired to try working on it.

Goals solidifying

Last night I had a good chat with Mom about my career options. She responded positively to my idea of trying out the work of an electrician. I need to get more information about it, of course, and try it out. I’m more excited about it than education, but I have to get the education degree. That is my top priority.

Mom also recommended that I try doing a little bit of programming every day, and focus on it. When I made my proposal of other ideas to try, she said that maybe I shouldn’t force myself. But I think there is value in forcing myself, and I haven’t really made a formulaic plan to do programming. So this week I’m going to force myself to do 20 minutes every day, and nothing else. If I can’t get anywhere after this week, maybe I’ll give it up, at least while I’m in Japan.

Many times that I talk to Mom about a teaching career, she talks about all the things that I could teach, and that makes me really eager to try, even though I know it would be a lot of work.

Also yesterday I fully intended to go to church, but when the time rolled around, I was still in bed. I don’t know why. And the next three weekends are long weekends (well, actually the third one is just a Sunday-Monday weekend). I’d like to go somewhere, and if that happens I won’t be going to church.

Ugh, it’s a bit difficult to write in the afternoon. My thoughts aren’t as clear. Also, today is extremely hot—just sitting down I’m dripping with sweat.

Electrician

I think I mentioned that I had been considering a more practical job like construction work to try out when I go back home. I looked into that and some other trade-type jobs, and it seems like two of the best trades are electrician and welder. Welding honestly sounds less interesting, more uncomfortable and involving a lot of heat. Being an electrician is apparently more dangerous, but it involves more creative and/or interpretative thinking and is slightly less physical. Construction was the main thing I was interested in, but it sounds like a lot of hard work and doesn’t pay much better than customer service, whereas an electrician can make more than a teacher. Not as much as a programmer though, ugh.

I thought of a new idea for programming though—what if I focus on embedded systems? There are plenty of jobs for that, and I think they’re pretty much all worthwhile. Also, they tend to use C from what I understand, which is a language I am familiar with. Having some electrician experience would be beneficial too, I would think. Honestly, programming is so daunting and I don’t know where to start. I get a weekly newsletter about it, but maybe I should investigate more closely how to get a job and what kind of job I’m looking for.

Somehow I stumbled upon tiny houses. They sound really neat. I would love to build one myself, but there isn’t much point unless I’m going to stay in the US for at least a few years. But if I were going to build one, it would be great to have electrician experience under my belt (otherwise I would have to hire one). Generally I’m a big fan of do it yourself projects. Tiny homes are usually built on trailers, and personally I’m not sure I would want one that small, and I certainly wouldn’t want to drive it.

Instead of accepting this wanderlust as a part of my personality, what if I ask “why do I want to move?” Maybe it’s partially social. I feel like my social group is stagnant and unsatisfying. I’m nervous about investing more in people, because there are more expectations, and I have difficulty remembering things about people unless I feel like I make a good connection with them (like I do with my students). I think that’s part of the reason that I take breaks from church—I’m dissatisfied with my relations with people, and I want to try starting over. Sure, I also want to experience new things and I do get tired of old things, but I’ve also never been in anything I considered a permanent position in the US, or anywhere else, for that matter. I’ve never thought to myself, “I could see myself doing this (or something closely related) in five or ten years.” I tried to get there with a programming job, but I was overwhelmed with my lack of success, and I wanted to go to Japan, and yeah, it was May, which is when I tend to get restless.

So my top priority should be finding a job that would potentially be more or less permanent, and then see if I really do have wanderlust. Also, improve my ability to interact with people. Hah, good luck.

Stifled

Saturday I went with the other teachers to Matsumoto to a beer (?) festival. The beer was ridiculously expensive—there was a mediocre beer for $6/400ml, but the others were $12/500ml or more. Some Japanese people sat next to us and we chatted with them for almost the whole time. The festival ended at 9, but we had a good enough time that we wanted to continue the night so we went to a sketchy bar afterwards. A few others joined us at that time and they were friendly but vulgar—I don’t mind a little bit of that from a person that I know well, but it makes a very negative first impression on me. We caught the last train home, and the hour and a half interim was more painful than fun.

On Sunday I didn’t do anything except climb at the gym. My favorite wall was occupied for most of the time, so I wore myself out a bit on the more difficult walls, but I did a couple of difficult red problems including one of my old favorites. Even so, I felt oddly dissatisfied in the end. I’m still quite sore though, which is kind of a nice sensation. Oh, but I punched one of the holds and now my left pointer finger occasionally gives me sharp pains. I managed to continue climbing for half an hour after doing so, but I think I’ll take an unplanned rest today in the hopes that it won’t be as painful next time I climb.

Yesterday I was extremely busy at the junior high school. It was a pretty good day, though. I really enjoy the 3-3 class, although I haven’t taught them much. In fact, I feel like the only classes I’ve taught very regularly are 1-3, 3-1, ishizue, open, and maybe 2-2. It's only my second week back, but maybe I'm getting used to the junior high school. Then again, I've avoided one teacher as much as possible, so maybe that's the solution.

I have had lots of thoughts about my purpose and direction, but they haven’t solidified into anything resembling a resolution or decision. Both Wyatt and Davide had dates on Sunday. This morning I was thinking about how if I went to Vietnam I could probably find a beautiful girlfriend quickly. It’s really appealing, aside from the fact that I don’t want to live in Vietnam long-term or speak Vietnamese.

I mentioned to mom and dad that I could possibly stay in Japan another year. Because of my investments, that is the most hassle-free and financially wise step to take, but I can’t even entertain it seriously. Right now I feel stifled in Japan, illogically. It’s not dissimilar to the feeling I got in the US after two years, and I suspect it will only get worse as the end of the school year draws near. I kind of wonder if I would get the same feeling from marrying someone, and therefore, to prepare myself for that, I should do my best to bear with it. I just looked up jobs and it seems like October is a good start date for Morocco.

Ugh, I've told myself several times that going back to Vietnam would be stupid, kind of like going back to college or high school, but it's still so appealing. Thinking back, Vietnam was the happiest part of my adult life, and if I could, I probably would go back to college regardless of how silly it might be.