Leaving the JET Program, Part 2: Honing My Life Focus

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At the end of July I’m finishing my Day Job teaching English in Japan with the JET Program, and the transition has given me a lot to think about.  This is the second in a multi-part series about working on JET, what it’s brought me, how I feel about it, and where I’m headed in the future. You can check out Part 1 here.

The cover photo shows an actual girls elementary school (which later became Tanaka elementary school) in my town of Namerikawa, Toyama, from the early- to mid-20th century.

As I wrote about last week, I really like my job teaching English with the JET Program, but it’s time for me to move on.  Besides some problems with one of my co-teachers and not being able to see family and friends in the States, there’s one really, really important reason for my leaving that deserved its own post:

It’s time for me to focus more on creative work, and not on Day Job work. Continue reading »

Leaving the JET Program, Part 1: I Love My Day Job, But I’m Leaving

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At the end of July I’m finishing my Day Job teaching English in Japan with the JET Program, and the transition has given me a lot to think about.  This is the first in a multi-part series about working on JET, what it’s brought me, how I feel about it, and where I’m headed in the future.

Also, the cover photo shows an actual boys elementary school from my town of Namerikawa, Toyama, from the early- to mid-20th century.

I really like teaching English in Japan.  A lot.

I work as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in Toyama, Japan as part of the JET Program, a Japanese government program that recruits teachers from overseas to teach in elementary, junior high, and high schools.  I live in a small town, and work at 3-5 elementary schools per semester, often a different school every day.

ALTs on the JET Program work alongside Japanese teachers in the classroom, rather than teaching alone.  While this can often lead to dull, repetitive work that JET researcher David McConnell and others call Human Tape-Recorder syndrome, I take a more active role in lesson planning Continue reading »

I’m Taking Time Off From My Day Job and Using That Time Productively (Oh Yeah!)

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As some of you may have heard, back in the fall I was planning a Christmas trip back to New Hampshire to visit family and friends…which I ended up calling off when COVID cases and restrictions ramped up.  This sucked pretty hard, and while I don’t regret calling off the trip, it’s unfortunate that circumstances forced me into making that tough decision.

Here’s the good point, though: while planning the trip, I got approved for a four-week vacation from my Day Job.  And when I called off the US trip I decided I’d still use the time off.

Quick bit of backstory: My job as an ALT on the JET Program comes with, among other perks, 20 paid days off per year that are pretty flexible, especially if I schedule them in advance.  Last year because of COVID I barely used any, so when my new JET contract started in August I found myself with a mouth-watering 29 days to use or lose as I see fit.

And I have no intention of losing them. Continue reading »

I Took a Stress Test at Work and Here’s What I Learned

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I’ve been taking it slow on the blogging front lately while I reorganize some of my priorities in my writing, my Day Job, and everywhere else.  One factor that ties all those things together, though, is stress.

Back in October, two weeks after I talked to my boss about my stress problems, a single-page multiple-choice English stress survey suddenly appeared on the desks of all the foreign teachers in my city with notes asking us to fill them out.  Now, even though the city had asked every ALT to fill out the survey, the timing seemed like quite a coincidence ;-)

I got my results back a few weeks ago (also in English!) and they were…about what I expected. However, they also reinforced that I’ve been on the right track about the challenges I’m facing right now, including where those challenges are coming from and how to fix them. Continue reading »

Fall TRAM Now Online, Plus Thoughts on Editing a Cool Indie Zine

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The TRAM (a.k.a. that zine I work on in Toyama) has a new issue out, one that I’m particularly proud of because of the quality of the material.  This was also our first new issue since our long hiatus earlier this year, and it has a mix of stuff that I’ll sincerely recommend here.

Those outside the Toyama JET community will be most interested in Mind Your Mindset, an article about Growth Mindsets vs. Fixed Mindsets by recent JET alum Rikio Inouye that shows how opening up to personal growth can lead to greater happiness and success.  I’d recommend anyone interested in improving their perspective and taking on new challenges check this one out.

I also put together another edition of my Let’s Talk About Japan Books! column, this one covering two nonfiction books about the JET Program itself.  While Bruce Feiler’s Learning to Bow isn’t worth getting excited over (despite its popularity, I didn’t like the book all that much), the centerpiece is my review of a book called Importing Diversity: Inside Japan’s JET Program by David McConnell, a for-serious academic study about the early years of the JET Program. The book leaves no stone unturned when it comes to the problems faced by ALTs and is incredibly relevant to anyone currently working on or considering JET. Continue reading »

Non-Creative Things I Do to De-Stress: Saturdays at Home

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On Saturdays I like to step away from creative work.

I used to sleep late on Saturday mornings, but this left me feeling lethargic, so now I try to get up around eight or so to let the sunlight in through my balcony doors.  If it’s sunny (which it usually is this time of year) I’ll throw in a load of laundry to air-dry later in the morning and lay in bed reading until I feel like getting up.  This morning instead of a book I read this essay from The Millions about writers living a life of uncertainty, which left me feeling inspired.

After reading but before leaving my bed I pull out my phone and check messages from the night before.  I try not to overdo it, though, since it’s best not to get sucked into a social media vortex first thing in the morning.

I used to check email first thing on Saturday mornings too, but this left me feeling drained and empty regardless of what I found in my inbox, so I stopped.  I’m writing this at one p.m. on a Saturday—I haven’t checked my email today and I genuinely don’t care.  It’s midnight in America, so email can wait. Continue reading »

The TRAM (a.k.a. that Magazine I Work on in Japan) is Back!

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Last year I stepped up to co-edit a cool indie zine called the TRAM (a.k.a. Toyama’s Random-Ass Magazine) here in Toyama, and our latest issue went live a few days ago.  In addition to covering local places around Toyama (restaurants, tourist spots, etc.) we publish writing and art, cool articles about Japanese culture, and whatever random stuff we can.  The latest issue features a Japanese rock music column, an essay about the suppression of dialects in rural Japan, and three pages of paintings by local artists.

If you’re interested in Japan or just want to check out one of my many side projects, you can read the issue online here.

I also write a regular column for the TRAM called Let’s Talk About Japan Books! where I share cool books by Japanese writers and books about Japan in general.  The latest one is about one of my personal favorites, Kobo’s Abe’s 1962 novel The Woman in the Dunes, Continue reading »

Non-Creative Things I Do to De-Stress: Bike Rides

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I can’t drive a car in Japan and I don’t miss it at all.

When I first got to Japan I planned on walking and taking the train to get where I needed to go.  Cars are expensive, and learning to drive on the left seemed like a real pain, in addition to the difficulties involved with buying a car and dealing with foreign vehicle registrations.  Screw all that

…except that things in my suburban small town can be pretty far apart, which makes for a LOT of walking, not to mention tired feet.  So when my coworker suggested I invest a few hundred bucks in a decent road bike, I decided it might be a good idea. Continue reading »

Thoughts on Going Back to Work After School Closures

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Quick Recap: The Coronavirus pandemic hasn’t hit Japan nearly as hard as most other countries, and in my region of Toyama there’s only been 227 cases since COVID-19 came here in late March.  Still, schools in my city were closed for most of March, all of April, and the first three weeks of May.  During that time I mostly stayed home, running a schedule that mixed creative work and Day Job work, where my coworkers and I made English movies for the kids to watch at home.

But that’s all changed now—schools in my city opened on May 21st, and as of June 1st the foreign teachers are back to work too.

Since most schools in the US are still closed, Japan’s school openings…may seem surprising to some of you.  Going to school naturally involves a lot of people being close together indoors for long periods of time, Continue reading »

Stay-at-Home COVID-19 Creative Work Schedule!

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If you’ve read my earlier posts on Coronavirus in Japan, you may recall that cases here have progressed more slowly than in the States, and there haven’t been nearly as many.  Schools have been almost entirely closed since early March, and they’re slated to stay closed until the end of May at least.  In Toyama, most businesses are still open, albeit with limited hours and fewer customers, and most people seem to be practicing safe social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand sanitizing.

I too have been working from home since early April, and have started to understand what my friends and family back home are dealing with.  Not leaving your house…kind of sucks, especially when your house is a three-room apartment and you spend most of your day sitting on a tatami mat floor. Continue reading »

It’s About Prioritizing: An Interview with Haley Alt

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Haley Alt is a dystopian YA author whose three novels have sold more than 10,000 copies on Amazon under the name H. Alt.  (The first half of her fourth novel, Godless, is available for free on Wattpad.)  She recently moved back to the States after almost eight years in Japan, where she taught English, worked at a travel agency, and promoted sightseeing and did English translation for the town of Tateyama in Toyama.  I met her through my work on the TRAM art and culture zine, and sat down with her at a Starbucks in the suburbs of Toyama City, where we talked about religion, her upcoming move back to America, how scary it is when people actually read your work, and how Tom Cruise helped her sell a lot of eBooks. Continue reading »

Sometimes I Have Adventures in Japan, Series 11

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…except not so much right now in these times of Coronavirus precaution.  Since my last update on Coronavirus in Japan, the number of COVID-19 cases hasn’t exploded like it has in a lot of other countries, and as of this writing, around 1,800 cases have been confirmed here.  That’s far less than in the U.S. and a lot of other countries that have been hardest hit.  The exact reasons for this are still unclear as this article explains, and most COVID-19 cases are still concentrated in a few areas (Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and the northern island of Hokkaido, with Tokyo being the epicenter for new cases in the past week).

My prefecture of Toyama still doesn’t have any confirmed cases, and out here the stores are all still in business and the schools have reopened.  As such, it’s been kind of surreal to read the news from back home and worldwide, and to read how people are reacting to the pandemic and the requests to stay home.  Stay smart, and stay safe, everybody. Continue reading »