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Tonight I'm writing ASB!!! Well, actually I'm typing what I've already written, since I've been doing it by hand when I have free time at work. (Considering buying a small, writing-only laptop since my dear Watson is a huge clunker that I hate carrying around. But can I afford it? Dunno yet.) I'm actually really pleased, things sort of fell into place that I was worried would take a lot of finagling to make them fit. And I'm pretty happy with character interactions. At least right now I am. Maybe next year I won't be, since I wince every time I reread certain chapters I wrote last year now. XD Still desperately need to fix the not-convo with Keiko in chapter seven. Anyway, weekend update...? That would be lovely for me.
Meanwhile I haven't read any fanfiction in ages except for "Spice" updates (the Star Trek one I talked about a while back) and Anarithilien's latest "Dark Forest" chapter (which, when I compare it [chapter 75!!! and good-sized chapters too!] to the first chapters from 2006, I'm amazed at how the story has developed). I found a Digimon fic recently that I would like to read a lot, but for some reason I'm not in the mood to read fanfiction. It's weird.
But while I'm talking about that, here is a Sherlock Holmes/John Watson fanfic author's site: The Seventeenth Step. Probably most SH fans know it. It's not Sherlock-verse. It's set in the original stories (most, if not all, of her fics were written before Sherlock was even a thing.) The author has a really strong grasp of Victorian writing style, and even then you can see a lot of improvement throughout her stories. On top of that, she's quite the clever romance writer. She likes to reimagine the stories as somewhat true, somewhat fabricated versions of what really happened, which is what she writes. For example, Watson getting married and the events of "The Final Problem" end up just being outlined in Conan Doyle version, and in her version she explains why Watson got married when he was already in a relationship with Sherlock, and what really compelled Sherlock not to come back after Moriarty died, etc. There's a good bit of smut too xP Doesn't do much for me, sadly, but there's always an intriguing plot and character development that pulls me in. I love her stories so much and reread them more than a lot of other fics. Check it check it check it.
Lately I read "Pride and Prejudice" again. You know, it's quite interesting how people tend to view Elizabeth as this unprivileged, clever girl and Darcy as the uber-privileged, clever guy. Clever is right, and in Darcy's case, uber-privileged is right, but Elizabeth was a gentleman's daughter. Her family had servants. There was a code of conduct that she was expected to follow as part of her class, and thinking about that, I had a very different reaction this time to her embarrassment by her sisters' behavior than I did in previous readings. I ended up wishing that Elizabeth had found a way to help her sisters grow up in the sense of learning about the world while also not resenting their natural personalities. But Austen, though we think of her as being this kind of progressive female writer, was actually very conservative/traditional in a lot of ways. I don't love P&P any less for this, it's just something I'm taking note of. Also read "The Alchemist" and am almost finished with "Warrior of Light," the former of which I'd read before. I loved it then and I love it now. Warrior, I think, is best read in conjunction with Alchemist, though it's not necessary, it just sets the tone. Warrior is beautiful. So many quotes for my collection. Alchemist is just amazing.
I also read the last book in the Hunger Games series and someday I will have to write about that because, because. To be honest, I don't get Hunger Games as a fandom, because the stories themselves seem so anti-fandom. I mean that in a very complimentary way. They don't leave a lot of fodder. In a way, the stories make too much sense. I loved it. I have so much I could say about HG, but the bottom line is this: The last couple chapters of "Mockingjay" killed me, and not because they were action-packed or thrilling or anything, because they weren't. They were gruesome and painful to read. And every moment of glory that in a normal adventure story of this type would make the reader satisfied with all the pain and failures the main character went through up till then was blocked or prevented. I am amazed. I'm not fond of the author's writing voice, but I am very fond of her approach to young adult lit and specifically to this theme. I remember my friend telling me she was worried about reading past the first book because she felt that while pointing out the problematic nature of glamorizing violence is a good theme, using glamorized violence to do so undercut her point. I was tempted to agree with her then, but having read all the books now, I feel like there's nothing glamorous about HG. Everything glamorous is gross and unnatural, and even the rebels, who you would expect, in this kind of story, to be the "good guys," and if not them, then at least the main character - even those people can't find a moment of clear, undeniable proof that their existence matters. I love it. The ending left me feeling sick. I wanted to hate "Mockingjay" so much but I couldn't help being ridiculously impressed by it.
So that was long but I'll write a real reaction to it someday, not just rambling feelings. I started reading "Remains of the Day" again and also "The Elegance of the Hedgehog." Loving both muchly. Wishing I hadn't left "Never Let Me Go" at home and remembered recently that I started "The Inheritance of Loss" but forgot to finish it.
Personal post behind the cut.
So the whiny post I wrote yesterday on tumblr and promptly deleted turned out to include a correct prediction: it was PMS and I am now having lots of fun on my moon cycle.
It's so silly because this morning I was thinking, "these feel like menstrual cramps. oooh. But probably not, right, because it's pretty much always been nighttime when that sort of thing starts for me. Maybe I ate something weird." By eleven am, though, it was manifestly obvious (to me) that it was not something I ate and I was kicking myself for forgetting emergency Ibuprofen, especially since I was at the track and the field taikai when means stand up sit down stand up sit down stand up sit down constantly. I did have emergency leak protection though. At least I can understand a bit more why I was so depressed and easily irritated yesterday. I don't think anyone else noticed anything except that I wasn't very talkative, which isn't uncommon anyway. ^^; (I'm always either not very talkative or I never shut up.)
That being said, the problems aren't going away that easily. I feel down when I don't feel useful. I feel embarrassed and irrelevant when I have nothing to do. It hurts especially when my friends say, "Oh, I have barely any free time! I'm so busy! And I have so much fun talking to my coworkers!" First of all I don't mean to say that I resent them for that. Not a bit. My friends are some of the best people in the world (no, really!) and if they're excelling at their jobs and making friends, it's not because God likes them better, but because they are hard workers and awesome people. I love to hear them talk about their days at work and the things that are going on in their lives. It's just when I have those silly moments of self-pity that I start to think, "Well, clearly I'm not up to snuff compared to them." I don't know if that's true or not. Part of me wonders if part of the trouble is that I'm only ever at one school for two or three days at a time before moving to another school. It's a rotation. I like it - I meet a lot of people and see a lot of different kinds of places - but there isn't a place that feels like "this is where I'm supposed to be" even though one school in particular is supposedly my "main" school. I feel like it's so hard to step over the boundary of "foreign guest" to "foreign resident language teacher" when I may not even see these same people for another two weeks at a time.
On top of that, if there's one thing I'm abysmal at (and there's more than one thing but), it's small talk. I've never been good at it. I can chit-chat with my friends easily enough, but I mean with people I don't know so well. Part of it is selfishness because no, I don't really care what your favorite color is, until we're friends. Then I care. I ought to care from the beginning because then I'd have more friends. The other part is fear of being intrusive, but at the same time, I've had people yammer away at me on the first day we met about their love lives and their friends' love lives and this horrible thing so-and-so did yadda yadda... To me that's uber intrusive, but I guess I have no idea what common boundaries are. You would think I'd have learned by now, but I still hate small talk.
I also wish I could tell what the students think of me! With them I make small talk like it's going out of style. I tried to talk to the boys around me all day today at the taikai. A couple were receptive (everyone was super hot and tired, so by receptive I mean conversation lasted until we collapsed from heat exhaustion again), but most answered me briefly and then looked somewhere else. Lol. Some of the kids seem like they like me. I think that possibly I'm still too much of a novelty? I heard them talk about my predecessor a lot today. And they still jump in surprise every time I talk to them in Japanese, even though lately I've been speaking more Japanese than English outside of actual English classes. I've got to give it time, but I'm also so jealous of the relationships between my coworkers and their students.
Back on the subject of needing to be useful: it's hard for me to feel ok becoming friends with my coworkers when I'm so nervous that they see me mostly as a guest or even a nuisance. I try my best, I do every errand asked and stay as late as they ask me when I don't have a bus to catch. (And even then... yesterday I decided to skip the bus and go home by taxi so that I could stay later coaching students who are going to be in a speech contest.) Classes have been great so far. Some are very energetic and I feel like I'm working, at least, even if I'm mostly a pronunciation guide. I enjoy joking with the students. They're pretty responsive during class time. One of them wrote out interview questions the other day that included "Are you the king of the jungle?" and "Are you a fundoshi?"
In the halls it's like they switch off and are shocked that I exist outside of English class. XD I need to get back into the jr high mindset though: teachers are a sort of mystical creature who you either love or hate when you're in jr high school, and either way they never stop being mysterious and strange. As for coworkers, I have fun talking to them and joking with them every time I've just come back from working in a class, or if I'm doing something with them. But the moment I've got nothing to do, and I see that they're still busy, I feel so damn useless and so ashamed to exist. Then it's so hard to seem friendly because I just stew. So. I don't know.
Part of it all is probably that I generally like everyone, and think of everyone as better than me, when I first meet them. I have a hell of a lot of undeserved pride in myself, but even so, it's true. Every time I think I'm awesome, I meet someone new who I end up thinking is clearly more awesome than me. Therefore I expect that they're constantly judging me. I can't possibly work hard enough or be good enough. Any sign of weakness is unforgivable. This is especially tragic because unfortunately I'm not a strong person.
At least I can say that to some extent I recognize that this is mainly self-esteem stuff and they're probably not thinking even half the things I think they're thinking about me. They are definitely awesome people. Maybe they are also awesome people of the "I don't judge greenhorn post-grad foreigners when they've only been doing this job for two weeks" variety.
Anyway, I should just be more friendly. Especially with the male teachers. Sometimes I feel intimidated talking to them unless they talk to me first, and with the female teachers, I can talk to them but sometimes still feel intimidated no matter how nice they are. XD This is one of my character flaws. I should just talk more. It doesn't come naturally to me and I don't like it very much, but saying "Can I help?" more often or just making more conversation will be a help in the long run.
Now that I've spilled my guts, let me underline what's most important: I love being here, I love this job, I don't have regrets. Just things that I hope to improve. This post isn't how I intended to start writing about my life here: I've meant to write long, incredibly happy, walking on air posts many times since I arrived. It's been great. Just lately, yeah, lately's been a bit tough. Being happy all the time isn't a strong suit of mine, though I wish it were, but at the end of the day these three things supersede any problems.