hey all,
So life in general has been a real roller coaster recently. To explain, I need to go back in time a little bit.
Last weekend, I thought Michi and I would be studying at the library on Sunday. Well, I didn't hear from her at all on Saturday, as my phone calls and emails weren't answered. I got an email Sunday morning saying she was going to Kamakura to write out by hand a Buddhist sutra. Why, exactly, I'm not really sure.
Anyway, that night she calls and at first everything is fine, but then this stream of really harsh stuff starts gushing from her mouth. Apparently, she had been talking with her parents just before, and her mother had expressed all sorts of worries about our future. After all, I don't have a really great job, my Japanese is not that good yet, and Michi is a bit older than me, so it isn't like she can really afford to waste time with any losers. So I got to hear all of that second hand, coming from someone I've grown to like and trust.
I didn't sleep really well that night, wasn't feeling very energetic at work on Monday, and basically announced that we were finished Tuesday afternoon.
Fast forward a few hours and I received a call from another company. I won't reveal their name here, but they asked me if I could come in sometime. As it happened, I had today off, and said I could come in.
Later that night, I was over at Michi's with the rapidly wavering intention of picking my stuff up (toothbrush, a green chef's apron made by my sisters), and suddenly I was crying, and she was saying she was sorry. And somehow things became OK again.
After we'd both settled down, I mentioned that I was going in to teach at this company, and she flipped out. She'd seen this company on Japanese TV, where it was listed as one of the three best English schools in Japan.
The next day, when I went into the school, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but the building seemed very nice, and the staff seemed pretty friendly. But the kids were just amazing. One of the teachers had prepared a lesson about Earth's tectonic plates, which I taught to 4 classes, the youngest of which was 4 students about 2 years old. Overall, the students were polite, interested in learning, and pretty fun. Not only that, but most of the students could read, and all of them could speak at a ridiculously high level of English. Unlike education in Japan's public schools, everything was taken very seriously. Students who misbehaved were called out, or made to sit in the corner, which I've never seen happen in a public school. (Aside from talking to the students, there is basically almost nothing a public school teacher can do, and besides which, ALTs stand even lower on the authority totem poll than real teachers.)
For some reason, they offered me a job, and I've decided to accept. It means moving to Yokohama, which is about an hour away, but Michi has been thinking about moving somewhere around that area anyway. I've informed my current company of my intentions. The job doesn't start until the end of October, so I have a little time to look for guesthouses, and the president of the school seemed like she really wants her teachers to be happy (so her happy teachers can happily teach happy students, I guest). The starting pay is a bit higher than what I made last year full time, but I fully expect teaching there to be more challenging.
That's all for now.
Cheers,
