The Ins and Outs of My New Japanese University Day Job

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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.
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Don’t Leave Your Creative Teammates Hanging (But If You Have To, Do It With Class!)

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I went through a rough time recently with a Creative Project Whose Name I Won’t Mention Here.  This project is a team effort that requires me to work closely with a few other people toward a common goal. Each person has a job, and we worked together to produce something we’re really proud of.

Until one person jumped ship.

Their leaving was pretty gradual: they started out by citing some personal issues and asking for more time, which we were happy to give them.  However, a few weeks turned into a few months, during which the person started replying slowly and briefly to messages where I asked for updates, then stopped replying at all.

This put the project in a weird state of limbo, especially since we had other collaborators on the line, promises to keep, and at least one financial-based deadline.  Finally, after several weeks of silence, Continue reading »

Life Upheavals Make It REALLY Difficult to Do Your Creative Work

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Yeah, I’m here.

I just packed up my entire apartment, said goodbye to all my Toyama friends, spent two and a half days traveling halfway across the world, finished another round of developmental edits on my novel, and met up with my New Hampshire family and friends for the first time in two years, all while battling jet lag and struggling to find the clean socks I’d scattered throughout the darkest regions of my luggage to save space.

How you doing? 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 »

June 2021 Novel Update: I Stepped Away From Writing, But That’s OK

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Yep, I jinxed myself.

I’m not going to lie—June was a busy month for me.  In addition to polishing up MFA Thesis Novel in preparation for my developmental edit, a lot of my attention has been focused on a Secret Change that I’m not quite ready to talk about yet (but will be soon!).

The problem with this Secret Change is that it turned out to be a MUCH bigger undertaking than I expected.  It also required a LOT of email checking and sending, since information was constantly changing and I needed to stay on the ball.  The Secret Change also involved a lot of stress, which affected my sleeping patterns and kept me up one night until two am to make a deadline, which threw off my sleep schedule for the entire week Continue reading »

What Do You Compromise On When You’re Busy?

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I didn’t post last week (d’oh!) because I had a lot going on and needed to catch up on some things.  Fortunately I caught back up (yay!) and things look to be more chill this week, but the experience made me think about what I cut back on when I’m busy, and how I prioritize my time.

Here’s a quick list of things I’m likely to stop doing if I’m busy so I can focus on what’s more important.  The ones at the top are less important (and thus more likely to get dropped!) while the ones farther down down are things I’ll cut out more reluctantly.

Making this list has helped me understand some of the prioritizing I’ve been doing naturally, and I’m planning on keeping it as a reference to guide me through future busy weeks.  As such, it might be worth making your own list of compromises for your own benefit—if you can spare the time of course ;-) Continue reading »

I Checked My Email in the Morning and It Threw Off My Whole Day

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Yep, that’s what happened.

I’ve gone through a variety of email checking routines over the past few years, ever since I first realized in 2017 that I was checking email too frequently and it was causing me to get distracted during the day.  Even worse was that for me, email (also: texting, social media, Google News feed, etc.) was causing me to feel dependent, so that during the day I’d reach for my phone when I was feeling bored or down hoping for a quick pick-me-up.

Long story short, that way of using my phone sucks, and I really don’t like it.

Recently I also I wrote about my new text-message-free morning routine, where I physically close my eyes when I shut off my phone alarm in the morning to avoid seeing text notifications that could throw off my entire day Continue reading »

Sick Days Are Super-Important, and Don’t You Forget It!

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The title of this post says it all.

Last weekend I came down with a cold—not a super terrible one, but one that had me coughing with a sore throat and made my body ache for a few days.  When I realized what was wrong, I put some unnecessary projects on hold and took it easy for a few hours.  Then, when it was clear that I really feeling well, I called in to work and took a few sick days to recover.

Since I already wrote an entire post about how the national Japanese health care system makes it super-easy to go to the doctor, instead I want to emphasize that because my job as a teacher on the JET program gives me as many sick days as I need, I felt really comfortable calling in and staying home. This is because: Continue reading »

I’ve Become the Kind of Person Who Does Work in Coffee Shops and I’m OK With That

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For most of my adult life, I had a shit-ton of debt and was chronically short on money, which meant that I cut back on unnecessary purchases as much as possible.  My thought process usually went like this:

 

[At the gas station]

Do I really want that can of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles?

Nah, I’ve got snacks at home.

 

[When Making Plans]

Do I really want to see the Blade Runner Final Cut rerelease in the theater with my friends on a fun outing that may or may not include costumes and also go out for pizza at a restaurant I really like where we’ll have a great time hanging out?

Hell yes. Continue reading »

Why Rest Matters – The Art of Rest with Claudia Hammond

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I had my mind blown the other day listening to an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Intelligence Squared.  The episode featured an interview with Claudia Hammond, author of the book The Art of Rest, which is exactly what it sounds like.

The discussion covered what rest does for us, and how it’s different than sleep.  When we rest, we’re disconnecting from all the things we have to do, and doing something simple or enjoyable instead, anything from daydreaming to taking a hot bath.  Hammond mentioned one really important aspect of rest that made me stop and think: if you’re feeling guilty about the thing you’re doing, it’s not restful.

When I heard that I realized I often feel guilty when I take time off to do restful things, whether it’s reading, spending time with friends, relaxing, taking a walk, or playing a video game.  There’s a voice in the back of my head that tells me what I’m doing is a waste of time and that I should be spending my time on something productive.  The guilt stops me from 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 »