![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Now that I'm starting to un-jet lag I'm beginning to see things a little more clearly. I feel a lot of grief about leaving Japan. I don't regret my decision; I just really wish it had worked out. It's hard to plan for something for 5 months and then have it be this huge letdown. I had these ideas of how I wanted things to be and it wasn't that way at all. I really tried to make the most of it but I think I was lying to myself a lot of the time in the hopes that it would make all work.
What surprises me right now is that I didn't leave because of homesickness. If you'd asked me before I left what was going to be the hardest, I would have told you homesickness. It wasn't the homesickness that got to me. Yes, I got homesick, but that wasn't what made it so awful. It was the job itself. It sucked. Actually, everything was fairly OK until I started working at the school. Training was hard and grueling, but I got through that OK. Everyone kept saying "oh just get through training and it will all be great at the school". That turned out to be a huge untruth. The school was so much worse.
The first day they had me teaching three classes. Already I felt overwhelmed. I arrived at the school from Nagoya at 12 and they immediately had this meeting with me (head teacher and manager). It wasn't a "welcome" meeting as you would imagine, it was them going over a list of things they were supposed to tell me or otherwise they would get into trouble with honbu (headquarters). Not one single time did I ever felt greeted or welcomed at the school. I was never given a tour. I was never introduced to the other staff. They didn't show me where the textbooks were or how to use the computers. (The computers were in Japanese folks!) So I had about 2 hours to plan for my three classes. It was ridiculously impossible. I had just come from training where they gave us hours and hours just to plan one lesson. The woman I was replacing went from super nice to mega-bitch in an instant. She actually yelled at me and told me to "hurry up". As if I was going to perform some miracle and actually understand what I was doing. I felt like quitting the first day. But I stuck it out. I was working from 9 or 10 in the morning until 10 at night every day. I felt like I was planning and planning and no one would help me.
It just really never got better. I didn't get to enjoy teaching because I never felt prepared. The head teacher never asked me how I was doing or checked in at all. Never. I felt like I was bothering the other teachers whenever I asked them questions. Not because I don't think they wanted to help but because they were so busy themselves. All of them were disgruntled and stressed. The other foreign teacher was the worst of them all. He HATES it there, yet continues to work there. He repeatedly talks about getting an ALT or some other teaching job yet has not gotten anywhere. It's the perfect way to start a new job - around a bunch of bitter, grumpy people. Whenever I tried to talk to the other foreign teacher about my concerns he would just start in with some story about how much worse it was for him when he started. As if that's helpful to tell me.
So by the end of my second week I was trying to figure out what to do. I really wanted to try and "stick it out". Mostly because I didn't want to be a letdown or a failure to everyone who helped me get there. By Friday morning of my second week I decided, "fuck that". I'm doing what I want. At precisely 9 am on Friday morning I decided to quit and come home. I had no one to impress but myself and I wasn't happy. I hated my apartment, my neighborhood had yet to impress me, and my school just sucked. I just couldn't lie about it anymore. and NO I wasn't going to "stick it out a little longer". It was obvious to me that everyone else at the school tried that and wasn't happy. I was guaranteed by AEON that after oh, 3 months or so I would spend an hour or so planning a day. Well that's great but I don't want to spend 3 months being miserable. In addition to that my school isn't doing well financially. It was made clear in training that a school that doesn't make spirits is not a happy school. My school hadn't made spirits in YEARS. Then there's the whole issue with the Japanese teachers. I felt like they were really treated differently than the foreign teachers. They were paid less. Didn't get a subsidized apartment. I don't care if they already live in Japan and have some advantages. They were treated differently and I hated it. I felt like I was always pressured to do lobby talk and they weren't. I don't know the reasoning behind that, and I don't want to speculate.
Oh, they also failed to tell me AT ANY POINT, that I would be expected to work two Sunday's a month. Um, NO.
Ugggghhh!! So it just gets worse. Friday I go to the school and it's the head teacher and I alone there. I tell him that I'm leaving. I knew it would be this irritating, and awkward conversation. I told him and he says "no". I say, "yes, I will be leaving sometime next week". He starts laying into me about how I signed a contract and blah blah. Then he starts saying "well what about your students?” As if I have some unbreakable bond with them after two weeks. Give me a break. It wasn't all fast and easy like that either. He would ask me a question. I answer. Then we sat there in awkward silence while he thought of his next question. His eyes got all red and watery like he was going to cry again but this time it was because he was ANGRY. I mean A-N-G-R-Y. He kept trying and trying to talk me out of it. I think this must have gone on for half an hour. The manager shows up and he of course tells manager all about it. Then they proceed to ignore me most of the day. Then manager hands me a note asking me to meet with them. I was totally annoyed because I knew it was going to be them trying to talk me out of it again. So we have this stupid meeting and they immediately start laying a guilt trip on me. Keep in mind, they don't CARE ABOUT ME. They care about losing money. I finally just tell them "if the point of this meeting is to try and talk me out of it, save your breath." I think it lasted another half hour and then I got out of there.
So finally Saturday rolls around. I had asked mom to try and get me a ticket for sometime early next week. She didn't have any luck. (Not her fault) So I decided that I had to get busy and get one on Saturday. I knew that if I didn't have a ticket I would have to continue having conversations where they try talking me out of it. I didn't have the energy for another one. I had also talked to Honbu who tried to talk me out of it. I went to the travel agency next door to my school and find out about tickets. It's on the same floor as the school in the building. The woman tells me that she'll reserve a ticket for me on Monday and bring me the itinerary at the school. Apparently she came to the school while I was teaching and told manager and head teacher the flight was sold out. I had decided Saturday morning that it would be my last day at the school. I just wasn't going to do this anymore. So after class I go out and tell them that Saturday will be my last day. The conversation went as follows:
Me: Did the lady from the ticket place come by?
Head Teacher: Yes, they were unable to issue you a ticket. Sold out.
Me: OK, well today is going to be my last day.
HT: No.
Me: Um, YES.
HT: No, you will work one more week.
Me: (about to EXPLODE like an ANGRY tea kettle) YES, it is. It's my decision.
HT: but you don't have a ticket.
Me: Today will be last day.
That's when I walked away. I was so angry I thought I was going to scream. Literally, I don't think I've ever been so angry.
So I went back to the ticket agency and asked to reserve one of the other tickets she had offered me. She suggested one for Wednesday. I had to pay in cash and I only had about 20 minutes. So I went back to class and then on my break I had to run about half a mile to the post office and pray I could withdraw enough to pay for it. By some luck of the gods, I was able to. I went back and bought my ticket. Turns out my asshole head teacher had tried to talk her out of selling one to me. UGH. I just can't believe that!
Later that afternoon HT asks to meet with me. I can tell he's all mad and weird. I know it's going to be ugly. I was in the office with two other teachers and they both looked at me really sad-like. Like they knew it was going to get ugly. So I go in there and he starts laying into me. Asking all these weird questions about precisely when I knew I was quitting. When exactly I had decided and why precisely I wanted to. (I had given him tons of reasons the day before) Then he started asking me about the other teachers. If they knew I was leaving, and what they said to me when I told them. I said I told them one by one and NO I wasn't telling him what they said. That's their business. (All of them told me they were disgruntled and wanted to quit too)
Then he asked me "how will you close your bank account?" "How will you cancel your cell phone?” "How are you going to get to the airport?” In this totally condescending tone. NOT because he wanted to help me, but because he wanted to mock me. He had helped me do all of those things (it's his job to help new teachers get set-up) and I suppose he though I couldn't do it on my own. Whatever.
Later in the day the travel agent came by to bring me my reservation and she gives it to me in front of HT and manager. It was really awkward and I immediately went to put it into my bag. As I was putting it away HT came in and slams this heavy-duty magnet onto the white board right by my head. It was so loud my ears rang. So obviously on purpose. He's just like this angry child.
There's so much more to it all than that, but you get the idea. I'm so glad to be out of there. I'm not glad to be out of Japan though. I really love Japan.
I think there's a reason I need to be at home though. It's not like it's torture to be here. I love Seattle. I am proud of myself for going. For making it. I'm proud of the fact that I got through it all. It may not seem like much to some of you but I'm proud of all the little things I accomplished. I mean, even just arranging things like closing my bank account and arranging to have my luggage picked up at my apartment. Those were huge things for me. Hard to do when you don't hardly any Japanese. Very hard to do when nobody else there is helping or supporting you.
This isn't a bash on AEON. The people at honbu were wonderful. It's a matter of getting put into a school with many problems. I think I could have lived with my apartment and grown to really love my neighborhood (I was already sold on Nagoya) if my job was tolerable. Even teaching was fun sometimes when I felt prepared. The students were great people. Really nice. Usually eager to learn.
I'm still processing so much right now, but all I want to do is move forward. If I dwell on it, I will crumple.
What surprises me right now is that I didn't leave because of homesickness. If you'd asked me before I left what was going to be the hardest, I would have told you homesickness. It wasn't the homesickness that got to me. Yes, I got homesick, but that wasn't what made it so awful. It was the job itself. It sucked. Actually, everything was fairly OK until I started working at the school. Training was hard and grueling, but I got through that OK. Everyone kept saying "oh just get through training and it will all be great at the school". That turned out to be a huge untruth. The school was so much worse.
The first day they had me teaching three classes. Already I felt overwhelmed. I arrived at the school from Nagoya at 12 and they immediately had this meeting with me (head teacher and manager). It wasn't a "welcome" meeting as you would imagine, it was them going over a list of things they were supposed to tell me or otherwise they would get into trouble with honbu (headquarters). Not one single time did I ever felt greeted or welcomed at the school. I was never given a tour. I was never introduced to the other staff. They didn't show me where the textbooks were or how to use the computers. (The computers were in Japanese folks!) So I had about 2 hours to plan for my three classes. It was ridiculously impossible. I had just come from training where they gave us hours and hours just to plan one lesson. The woman I was replacing went from super nice to mega-bitch in an instant. She actually yelled at me and told me to "hurry up". As if I was going to perform some miracle and actually understand what I was doing. I felt like quitting the first day. But I stuck it out. I was working from 9 or 10 in the morning until 10 at night every day. I felt like I was planning and planning and no one would help me.
It just really never got better. I didn't get to enjoy teaching because I never felt prepared. The head teacher never asked me how I was doing or checked in at all. Never. I felt like I was bothering the other teachers whenever I asked them questions. Not because I don't think they wanted to help but because they were so busy themselves. All of them were disgruntled and stressed. The other foreign teacher was the worst of them all. He HATES it there, yet continues to work there. He repeatedly talks about getting an ALT or some other teaching job yet has not gotten anywhere. It's the perfect way to start a new job - around a bunch of bitter, grumpy people. Whenever I tried to talk to the other foreign teacher about my concerns he would just start in with some story about how much worse it was for him when he started. As if that's helpful to tell me.
So by the end of my second week I was trying to figure out what to do. I really wanted to try and "stick it out". Mostly because I didn't want to be a letdown or a failure to everyone who helped me get there. By Friday morning of my second week I decided, "fuck that". I'm doing what I want. At precisely 9 am on Friday morning I decided to quit and come home. I had no one to impress but myself and I wasn't happy. I hated my apartment, my neighborhood had yet to impress me, and my school just sucked. I just couldn't lie about it anymore. and NO I wasn't going to "stick it out a little longer". It was obvious to me that everyone else at the school tried that and wasn't happy. I was guaranteed by AEON that after oh, 3 months or so I would spend an hour or so planning a day. Well that's great but I don't want to spend 3 months being miserable. In addition to that my school isn't doing well financially. It was made clear in training that a school that doesn't make spirits is not a happy school. My school hadn't made spirits in YEARS. Then there's the whole issue with the Japanese teachers. I felt like they were really treated differently than the foreign teachers. They were paid less. Didn't get a subsidized apartment. I don't care if they already live in Japan and have some advantages. They were treated differently and I hated it. I felt like I was always pressured to do lobby talk and they weren't. I don't know the reasoning behind that, and I don't want to speculate.
Oh, they also failed to tell me AT ANY POINT, that I would be expected to work two Sunday's a month. Um, NO.
Ugggghhh!! So it just gets worse. Friday I go to the school and it's the head teacher and I alone there. I tell him that I'm leaving. I knew it would be this irritating, and awkward conversation. I told him and he says "no". I say, "yes, I will be leaving sometime next week". He starts laying into me about how I signed a contract and blah blah. Then he starts saying "well what about your students?” As if I have some unbreakable bond with them after two weeks. Give me a break. It wasn't all fast and easy like that either. He would ask me a question. I answer. Then we sat there in awkward silence while he thought of his next question. His eyes got all red and watery like he was going to cry again but this time it was because he was ANGRY. I mean A-N-G-R-Y. He kept trying and trying to talk me out of it. I think this must have gone on for half an hour. The manager shows up and he of course tells manager all about it. Then they proceed to ignore me most of the day. Then manager hands me a note asking me to meet with them. I was totally annoyed because I knew it was going to be them trying to talk me out of it again. So we have this stupid meeting and they immediately start laying a guilt trip on me. Keep in mind, they don't CARE ABOUT ME. They care about losing money. I finally just tell them "if the point of this meeting is to try and talk me out of it, save your breath." I think it lasted another half hour and then I got out of there.
So finally Saturday rolls around. I had asked mom to try and get me a ticket for sometime early next week. She didn't have any luck. (Not her fault) So I decided that I had to get busy and get one on Saturday. I knew that if I didn't have a ticket I would have to continue having conversations where they try talking me out of it. I didn't have the energy for another one. I had also talked to Honbu who tried to talk me out of it. I went to the travel agency next door to my school and find out about tickets. It's on the same floor as the school in the building. The woman tells me that she'll reserve a ticket for me on Monday and bring me the itinerary at the school. Apparently she came to the school while I was teaching and told manager and head teacher the flight was sold out. I had decided Saturday morning that it would be my last day at the school. I just wasn't going to do this anymore. So after class I go out and tell them that Saturday will be my last day. The conversation went as follows:
Me: Did the lady from the ticket place come by?
Head Teacher: Yes, they were unable to issue you a ticket. Sold out.
Me: OK, well today is going to be my last day.
HT: No.
Me: Um, YES.
HT: No, you will work one more week.
Me: (about to EXPLODE like an ANGRY tea kettle) YES, it is. It's my decision.
HT: but you don't have a ticket.
Me: Today will be last day.
That's when I walked away. I was so angry I thought I was going to scream. Literally, I don't think I've ever been so angry.
So I went back to the ticket agency and asked to reserve one of the other tickets she had offered me. She suggested one for Wednesday. I had to pay in cash and I only had about 20 minutes. So I went back to class and then on my break I had to run about half a mile to the post office and pray I could withdraw enough to pay for it. By some luck of the gods, I was able to. I went back and bought my ticket. Turns out my asshole head teacher had tried to talk her out of selling one to me. UGH. I just can't believe that!
Later that afternoon HT asks to meet with me. I can tell he's all mad and weird. I know it's going to be ugly. I was in the office with two other teachers and they both looked at me really sad-like. Like they knew it was going to get ugly. So I go in there and he starts laying into me. Asking all these weird questions about precisely when I knew I was quitting. When exactly I had decided and why precisely I wanted to. (I had given him tons of reasons the day before) Then he started asking me about the other teachers. If they knew I was leaving, and what they said to me when I told them. I said I told them one by one and NO I wasn't telling him what they said. That's their business. (All of them told me they were disgruntled and wanted to quit too)
Then he asked me "how will you close your bank account?" "How will you cancel your cell phone?” "How are you going to get to the airport?” In this totally condescending tone. NOT because he wanted to help me, but because he wanted to mock me. He had helped me do all of those things (it's his job to help new teachers get set-up) and I suppose he though I couldn't do it on my own. Whatever.
Later in the day the travel agent came by to bring me my reservation and she gives it to me in front of HT and manager. It was really awkward and I immediately went to put it into my bag. As I was putting it away HT came in and slams this heavy-duty magnet onto the white board right by my head. It was so loud my ears rang. So obviously on purpose. He's just like this angry child.
There's so much more to it all than that, but you get the idea. I'm so glad to be out of there. I'm not glad to be out of Japan though. I really love Japan.
I think there's a reason I need to be at home though. It's not like it's torture to be here. I love Seattle. I am proud of myself for going. For making it. I'm proud of the fact that I got through it all. It may not seem like much to some of you but I'm proud of all the little things I accomplished. I mean, even just arranging things like closing my bank account and arranging to have my luggage picked up at my apartment. Those were huge things for me. Hard to do when you don't hardly any Japanese. Very hard to do when nobody else there is helping or supporting you.
This isn't a bash on AEON. The people at honbu were wonderful. It's a matter of getting put into a school with many problems. I think I could have lived with my apartment and grown to really love my neighborhood (I was already sold on Nagoya) if my job was tolerable. Even teaching was fun sometimes when I felt prepared. The students were great people. Really nice. Usually eager to learn.
I'm still processing so much right now, but all I want to do is move forward. If I dwell on it, I will crumple.
