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It's pretty amazing, on days when I talk to no one I feel bad about everything; bad about myself, bad about my situation, bad about my interactions with others, and bad about my abilities. However, if I can break through and interact with people, it all starts getting better.
I usually like being alone, I've realized this. It takes a lot of energy to get me out talking to people, which is why I wasn't a perfect RA. My personality is reserved and intimate and it often gets in the way of networking and motivating. For the most part I've made peace with this, it's who I am, but often times I'll recognize a problem with it and continue to be unable to do anything about it. Of course, this drives me insane.
Still, personality aside, we must be social creatures are heart. Even though I like to be alone, if I'm alone too long I get really upset. The last few days I've talked to absolutely no one and felt terrible about it. This morning, I hunkered down in my misery (sopping wet misery because of the City by the Sea's super rain...) and forced myself to study Japanese for an hour. There's no excuse for why I haven't been studying more.
During second period, K-sen came up to me and asked if I'd come to his class and make a self-introduction. Of course, I literally jumped out of my chair with glee! I also had the guts to ask if I could stay after my introduction, even though the rest of the class was going to be a Japanese explanation of freshman English at our school.
I have two goals for this semester: 1) to get closer to the students, and 2) to learn more about the Japanese education system. Therefore, sitting in was a good idea. Even if I'm not talking, just being in the class is good for my exposure with the kids. Also, I love pedagogy, so hearing about the structure of the regular classes was so interesting to me.
I learned a lot I didn't know before. They have like 6 textbooks and a dictionary for this class, and they're practically full-length textbooks! I know they probably won't use the entirety of all of them, but they are pretty serious about it. In fact, rigorous and difficult though the classes are, I'm jealous that I'm not part of such a program in Japanese. Their wordlist is HUGE - they have a separate textbook just for learning new vocabulary because they have to learn like 100 words every two weeks. They also have a short test every week and a review test every other. Sounds like my college Japanese class, but our class had a lot more conversation (try 5 times a week for 50 minutes). I find that I miss tests, because otherwise I have no motivation. Of course, I also need an external purpose, but as a learner it really makes me realize that I need it all, bureaucracy and philosophy together. Yeah, it's tough, but these kids are the top of the top high schoolers in Hokkaido and they're going to have learned so much by the end!
Furthermore, sitting in on the class advanced my Japanese goals. It was great listening practice, and K-sen is a really good speaker so it wasn't boring either. I asked if I could stay again tomorrow because if I hear it a second time I'll get even better. I can't understand everything yet, especially when it comes to hearing the little sounds that mark advanced grammar points in Japanese, but I can always get the gist. He let me have a copy of the handout too, and I found myself able to read pretty much all of the kanji. I have come a long way, whether I always realize it or not.
K-sen ended the class with a speech about dilligence and self-regulation, stressing that they needed this to succeed in high school. When I looked up the kanji he'd used, my dictionary translated it as "self-control," or "self-deprivation," but I don't think it's as negative as that. His speech was inspiring, like about being self-motivated, so I think that's just lost in translation, at least when it comes to my cheap DS dictionary anyway.
All of this also had the effect of motivating me. It realligned my goals both personally and career-wise, and it sparked my interest. So often it's nearly impossible in this job to see the big picture or even the little accomplishments in a day, especially with the removed psyche of a foreigner. It set my day on totally the right track too because it woke me up. Since then, I've had several conversations in English (one of which inspired another conversation in Japanese with a different teacher), I had a long conversation with a teacher in Japanese about a ton of different things, I contributed to a conversation my work circle was having in Japanese, and I actually had lunch with students and walked around talking to them!! Then one of the teachers I was talking to said his wife once or twice had The Pred teach with her at her elementary school and he said he'd ask her about me doing it too. Yaay!
I feel so much better about everything, just from talking to a few people. Even going to the bike shop in the pouring rain to fix my flat tire and doing the tedious shopping I've been putting off for weeks doesn't seem so bad.
When you get into a rut, it's hard to get out. I guess that's what culture shock is. All week I've been trying to figure out why I couldn't pick myself up or get the motivation to do anything. I couldn't get a second wind, no matter how hard I tried - and let me say, I've developed pretty many methods in the last year, all of which are usually successful. Turns out, this time what I really needed was a little success and thought provocation to fight my frustrations, both of which came from interacting with other people.
I usually like being alone, I've realized this. It takes a lot of energy to get me out talking to people, which is why I wasn't a perfect RA. My personality is reserved and intimate and it often gets in the way of networking and motivating. For the most part I've made peace with this, it's who I am, but often times I'll recognize a problem with it and continue to be unable to do anything about it. Of course, this drives me insane.
Still, personality aside, we must be social creatures are heart. Even though I like to be alone, if I'm alone too long I get really upset. The last few days I've talked to absolutely no one and felt terrible about it. This morning, I hunkered down in my misery (sopping wet misery because of the City by the Sea's super rain...) and forced myself to study Japanese for an hour. There's no excuse for why I haven't been studying more.
During second period, K-sen came up to me and asked if I'd come to his class and make a self-introduction. Of course, I literally jumped out of my chair with glee! I also had the guts to ask if I could stay after my introduction, even though the rest of the class was going to be a Japanese explanation of freshman English at our school.
I have two goals for this semester: 1) to get closer to the students, and 2) to learn more about the Japanese education system. Therefore, sitting in was a good idea. Even if I'm not talking, just being in the class is good for my exposure with the kids. Also, I love pedagogy, so hearing about the structure of the regular classes was so interesting to me.
I learned a lot I didn't know before. They have like 6 textbooks and a dictionary for this class, and they're practically full-length textbooks! I know they probably won't use the entirety of all of them, but they are pretty serious about it. In fact, rigorous and difficult though the classes are, I'm jealous that I'm not part of such a program in Japanese. Their wordlist is HUGE - they have a separate textbook just for learning new vocabulary because they have to learn like 100 words every two weeks. They also have a short test every week and a review test every other. Sounds like my college Japanese class, but our class had a lot more conversation (try 5 times a week for 50 minutes). I find that I miss tests, because otherwise I have no motivation. Of course, I also need an external purpose, but as a learner it really makes me realize that I need it all, bureaucracy and philosophy together. Yeah, it's tough, but these kids are the top of the top high schoolers in Hokkaido and they're going to have learned so much by the end!
Furthermore, sitting in on the class advanced my Japanese goals. It was great listening practice, and K-sen is a really good speaker so it wasn't boring either. I asked if I could stay again tomorrow because if I hear it a second time I'll get even better. I can't understand everything yet, especially when it comes to hearing the little sounds that mark advanced grammar points in Japanese, but I can always get the gist. He let me have a copy of the handout too, and I found myself able to read pretty much all of the kanji. I have come a long way, whether I always realize it or not.
K-sen ended the class with a speech about dilligence and self-regulation, stressing that they needed this to succeed in high school. When I looked up the kanji he'd used, my dictionary translated it as "self-control," or "self-deprivation," but I don't think it's as negative as that. His speech was inspiring, like about being self-motivated, so I think that's just lost in translation, at least when it comes to my cheap DS dictionary anyway.
All of this also had the effect of motivating me. It realligned my goals both personally and career-wise, and it sparked my interest. So often it's nearly impossible in this job to see the big picture or even the little accomplishments in a day, especially with the removed psyche of a foreigner. It set my day on totally the right track too because it woke me up. Since then, I've had several conversations in English (one of which inspired another conversation in Japanese with a different teacher), I had a long conversation with a teacher in Japanese about a ton of different things, I contributed to a conversation my work circle was having in Japanese, and I actually had lunch with students and walked around talking to them!! Then one of the teachers I was talking to said his wife once or twice had The Pred teach with her at her elementary school and he said he'd ask her about me doing it too. Yaay!
I feel so much better about everything, just from talking to a few people. Even going to the bike shop in the pouring rain to fix my flat tire and doing the tedious shopping I've been putting off for weeks doesn't seem so bad.
When you get into a rut, it's hard to get out. I guess that's what culture shock is. All week I've been trying to figure out why I couldn't pick myself up or get the motivation to do anything. I couldn't get a second wind, no matter how hard I tried - and let me say, I've developed pretty many methods in the last year, all of which are usually successful. Turns out, this time what I really needed was a little success and thought provocation to fight my frustrations, both of which came from interacting with other people.
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