The Ins and Outs of My New Japanese University Day Job

Two weeks in, and I’m feeling good.

As you might remember, in July I finished my job on the JET Program in Toyama, Japan, took a quick trip back to the States, then relocated back to Japan and the city of Yokohama for a new Day Job teaching university English for the fall semester.  It’s been a wild ride, but things have finally started to settle down.

As I wrote about last month, I had to deal with a two-week isolation period mandated by the Japanese government (even for vaccinated people…) that fortunately put me in a REALLY clear headspace for concentrating on my creative work.  I then spent the second week doing Zoom trainings and preparation for the new job from my apartment, which wasn’t too strenuous and served as a really good introduction to the new job and the people there.

When my two weeks were up, I spent a few days on campus, then started classes.  It’s only been two weeks, but I’ve gotten into a kind of groove that’s different from other Day Jobs I’ve had in the past, and one I think will be fairly conducive to getting creative work done. Here’s why:

 

My Setup

I won’t mention the name of the university I’m working at or how I got the job because of Day Job secrecy reasons, but here’s what I can tell you.

The campus I’m working at is in the middle of a Yokohama business district—as in, right in the middle of a bunch of skyscrapers.  My employer fixed me up with an apartment a couple of train stops away, and every morning I walk to the station (about 15 minutes), take the train with a bunch of Japanese salarymen (which my employer covers the cost of via a commuter pass!) then walk 7 or so minutes to the campus.

All told, the commute takes about 45 minutes, and because the morning trains in Yokohama come every 3-5 minutes, there are plenty of trains I can catch and still get to work on time.  I can read a book or catch up on texts while I’m on the train, and the commute is 100% free, which means transportation costs don’t cut into my bottom line.

The campus I work at is really just one tall building that houses the English department, a few other humanities departments, and the usual student amenities like a library, computer labs, and cafes.  There are multiple teacher offices and plenty of free spaces to work in, either alone or with other teachers.

Besides me, there are seven other English teachers from America, Britain, Canada, etc. who work in my department every day, plus a handful of others who work on multiple campuses or in other departments.  There are also Japanese managerial staff who help with organization, scheduling, student issues, etc., but they aren’t on campus very much, and we mostly communicate via email and chat.

The atmosphere is also VERY Western here, since my main coworkers are all foreigners.  Aside from the students, there’s barely any Japanese spoken at all, and 90% of the computer systems and paperwork are in English.

As far as the workload goes, I teach for about 3.5 hours per day (two 100-minute classes), plus a 45-minute free conversation class twice a week.  The free conversation class is laid-back and requires little to no preparation, while the regular classes so far have required an hour or so of prep each.   Emailing students, filing paperwork, the occasional meeting, and miscellaneous tasks take up a little bit of time, but not too much.

Also, because of the plethora of Japanese holidays and the super-long New Years vacation, I have two paid days off in September, one paid day off in October and November, and a solid two weeks off starting at Christmas, plus a handful of on-call days at the end of the semester after finals.  (To sum up, that’s around twenty paid days off for a five-month contract!)

Finally, for the most part, this job has a TON of freedom, in terms of where I work, when I work, and what I’m actually doing while I’m on campus, which is going to be REALLY important.

 

Day Job Freedom = Worktime Freedom

While my contract requires me to be on campus from 9:00 to 5:30, my 3.5 hours of classes are always either first thing in the morning, or first thing after lunch—which means that the rest of the day is all mine.

Preparation and paperwork definitely doesn’t take up the remaining 5.5 hours, so I’m left with a fair bit of time every day I can use to either get ahead on the next set of lessons, or use as I want, as was also the case at my last job, if you know what I mean ;-)

The great thing about this job, though, is that there are multiple places on campus where I can work away from my coworkers in relative peace.  As long as I have my laptop out and an open textbook on the table, it looks to an outside observer like I’m doing English instructor duties—and if my English instructor duties are all squared away, one could argue that I’m able to use my time as I see fit ;-)

 

The Value of a Clear Headspace

More importantly, though, is that I feel more anonymous when I’m at this Day Job.  At my last teaching job I was always the only foreigner in the school and everyone knew me.  Here, though, I’m just one Western face among many, so I blend in way more than I used to. That means I can relax more, and have more head space to myself.

It also feels REALLY good to be away from the workplace problems that dogged me at my last Day Job, and not having to deal with a toxic coworker anymore has been…well, freeing.

Because the work atmosphere here feels more like a college back home (again because my coworkers are all foreigners), I also don’t have to worry about fitting into a Japanese workplace, following Japanese customs, and figuring out the expectations of a new culture (which I still struggled with sometimes in Toyama, even after living in Japan for so long), so my days feel less stressful than before.

Also, teaching 40 Japanese 19- and 20-year-olds every day requires WAY less energy than teaching 50 to 100 Japanese 5th and 6th graders per day for sure, even if the amount of classroom time is the same or more.  I’m realizing more and more that while I love being around people and in high-energy situations, my status as an introvert means that these situations drain a lot of my energy, which in Toyama could leave me REALLY tired at the end of the day, and often made it difficult to do my creative work in the evenings.

That means that even if I don’t get home until 6:15 every day, I come home with a clearer head and ready to eat dinner and then dive into productive time after work.

And that’s pretty awesome for sure.

 

Moving Forward

Once I get into more of a groove, I’ll likely post a Daily Schedule of how I fit creative work into this new Day Job, just as I’ve done for my last few Day Jobs.  I’m also REALLY hoping that this low-stress, more focused life will continue for the next few months, at least until I can finish out this contract at the end of January and move on to the next thing.

Oh, and on that note—I’ve had a lot of people asking me what my next thing’s going to be.  I’ve got a few ideas that are really starting to crystalize as I figure out more and more what kind of setup I want and how I want to move forward.  More on that later, but let me tell you that it definitely involves less Day Job time, and more writing time ;-)