Long reply Part 1miludaFebruary 23 2011, 00:29:56 UTC
(Any information I write below about ALTs is related to being an ALT in Japan only. Things change with the country.)
Teaching won't be a permanent career for me (at least that is my current decision--life may change in the future.) As for teaching, I don't mind it. I personally think I'd rather enjoy it. I've done plenty of training for new hires and taught people various things in various topics. Sure, being an ALT is different from that, but no one can simply "teach well" without messing up the first few times.
Also, depending on the placement, if you're put in an elementary school, chances are pretty high that the actual teacher for that class may just sit back and let you teach the class. For Junior High, most of them seem to make you a tape recorder. High School, it's similar to Junior High. It really depends on the teacher you get paired up with-- some teachers are so strict with what is taught that they'd prefer to be the one teaching, even if it's incorrect English. Some don't want to bother teaching and give you the roll call sheet and have you teach the entire year. So, it really depends on the situation that I'm given. In any case, I am willing to do it all.
I am not trying to become an ALT because it is easy. That is not the point. I need a way to maintain myself while studying Japanese and I am willing to work to stay in the country. Being an ALT is considered an entry-level job and through those kinds of jobs do you get experience. The best thing is to improve the skills I have. That's what is the most important part. You can't simply do something without skills, but you cannot create skills if you don't have it. Like art. I've done it for years and I've improved so much. I had to start making shitty art somewhere and from then on improve as much as I can.
Don't worry about doujin stuff. As you have said, you have not read LJ recently. I have already released doujin work in Japan. Also, it is nothing like USA's scene. At all. Japan has a wonderful self-publishing culture compared to the US. It's much easier for a relatively unknown artist to publish things & sell it at comic market events provided they have the time and money to invest in it. That's what I find so beautiful about the self-publishing market in Japan.
I should have been more specific-- my dream career would be to work in the video game industry. I don't care where it is-- Japan, UK, America, etc.
This isn't for the "romantic reasons." I see that you've read the comments above and based a lot of your thoughts on them... they were assumptions the poster above made.
It's not for the friends. I am going for the sake of learning Japanese-- a goal that is for me and only me. If these friends stop talking to me, it won't change the goal I am trying to complete-- studying Japanese. I am not afraid to lose friends. I have lost plenty of friends over the years and gained even more than those that I have lost.
I have studied Japanese endlessly for two years now and I feel there is a better chance for my Japanese to improve in the country because after I visited for just two weeks, I started speaking conversational Japanese. Imagine what it'll do for me if it was one year! It wasn't like I was trying super hard or anything in those two weeks. Yet, I improved.
I truly appreciate that you are concerned but I am not worried at all. The reason I am going for is purely for myself. The other factors, while they may suck if my friends stop talking to me, will not kill me in the long run. In fact, I did not even think about that. Why think about something that has not happened yet? Why focus on "failures" when they haven't happened yet? It is not the time to worry about if you will have a house in 20 years if you are simply starting out now. It is not the time to worry about what happens about your car you just purchased in 20 years when you have not driven it for 20 years yet.
Took me forever to write this...nangbabyMarch 3 2011, 19:46:44 UTC
I've read your LJ, but it seems I didn't understand precisely what you were writing about. I thought you were translating doujin work and other mangas, not actually creating them yourself. Now I see why you're so popular on Twitter. ;)
The reason why I was concerned, though, was because it sounded from your entry that your primary motivation for becoming more proficient in Japanese was to improve communications with your friends, not your career. (I've also forgotten that you learned English as a second language...for someone not comfortable in it, you use it a lot better than my monolingual self.) In your replies you make it a lot clearer the professional reasons are just as important and you've planned this out. I apologize for the mistaken assumptions on my part.
I suppose I'm biased because I've been hurt by friends. I had friends -- not just Internet friends, but face-to-face friends who I've known for a decade -- and almost invariably, every last one of them have turned on me at one point or another. Heck, I've known magnus-samma about as along as I've known you, and you see what happened there. If I had decided to move to another country, even Canada, a country that shares the same language and much cultural history as the United States, then I would be stuck and disillusioned if my Canadian friends pulled the same junk. I couldn't even fathom living in Japan given the vast cultural differences.
Then again, staying in my hometown didn't get me ahead either. Being a clerical worker was supposed to be my ticket in to organization I work for. Five years later, I have the same job title with more work to do and am still in the entry level position. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for having a job and I don't despise my work, but it rendered all that work I did studying for naught.
I guess, speaking from personal experience, you do have to worry about failure or else you won't have a back up plan. For instance, if you think you can buy a house and go for it, it might not work out. You don't want to wind up with house which is costing you too much money to maintain, but won't sell because the housing market is slow and it's not in sellable condition. I mean, if you think you will succeed, then it makes it all the more devastating when you fail.
I suppose I can't understand because there are countless activities I've tried, put time and effort into, but to no avail. Typically, I don't get better, and in some cases, I get worse. Furthermore no one cares about anything else I write, or say, or do, or make, so I guess I have a different perspective than you on life in general. If you work toward getting better, but end up failing for one reason or another, pretty soon you realize that all that work was for nothing. I'm sorry for projecting my failings onto you.
Re: Took me forever to write this...miludaMarch 9 2011, 07:50:01 UTC
I just don't see it as failure. I see it as another path to somewhere else. It's hard to call something a failure because that means it's the end... life's not over yet.
If I think I will succeed and I didn't make it, at least I tried. It's better than not trying, which is truly the end of that. Onward to something else after that.
I don't think of things as failures. I think of things as opportunities... and perspective changes a lot. Do you see yourself as a failure? How about the things you've done? I see things as mistakes. You learn from mistakes. If you don't, then it's just stupidity... you can learn from everything.
I think to improve oneself you have to focus on the right thing. Maybe what you've done so far is addressing the wrong issue?
It's not like I haven't been hurt by friends. I've been hurt, I've been lied to, bridges were burned, and some were rebuilt. In this life, people come and go... and nothing says you can't make new friends. I've had plenty of downs and I've had plenty of ups, and if I only focus on my downs, I don't think I would have gotten so many ups as I've had in my life so far. Focus is so important. If I'm going to spend all day crying about how something went wrong, nothing happens in that day except crying. Of course, it takes time to heal, but... if it's been a long time after it happened, maybe it's time to move on, stop the crying, and do something to change it.
People get along, people misunderstand, people solve things, people leave each other... all sorts of things happen with friends and family, but it doesn't mean that because bad things happened in the past that it'll happen again. If I think like that, I can only think that it'll definitely happen again and that's not the kind of life I want to live. I want to live a life where I can at least have some semblance of control, enough to give myself a stable, level-headed mindset to help me progress further, not backward.
When I was living during the most depressing time of my life, I put up with it thinking that it's really what was left. I thought I was stupid because she told me I was. I lived for her, and not for me. One morning, I woke up and the first thought was, "I don't want this anymore." And from than day on, something changed--I changed, and if things didn't change, I made the effort to try and change it...
What works for me may not work for everyone else, but I really do think perspective is important... I've been hurt so many times, I've been in mental situations that I think no person should ever be at, but if I were to live my life in fear of those things happening again, I'll never be able to climb trees anymore.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for having a job and I don't despise my work, but it rendered all that work I did studying for naught."
It's not over yet. You can change it. You can try to search for another job somewhere else, something more worthwhile, something not entry level, something that pays more. You have to work for that, though. I wouldn't suggest leaving your job until you find a new one. Most people who just start jobs always jump to other jobs after they get hired. There's always opportunity... you have to seek it.
Teaching won't be a permanent career for me (at least that is my current decision--life may change in the future.) As for teaching, I don't mind it. I personally think I'd rather enjoy it. I've done plenty of training for new hires and taught people various things in various topics. Sure, being an ALT is different from that, but no one can simply "teach well" without messing up the first few times.
Also, depending on the placement, if you're put in an elementary school, chances are pretty high that the actual teacher for that class may just sit back and let you teach the class. For Junior High, most of them seem to make you a tape recorder. High School, it's similar to Junior High. It really depends on the teacher you get paired up with-- some teachers are so strict with what is taught that they'd prefer to be the one teaching, even if it's incorrect English. Some don't want to bother teaching and give you the roll call sheet and have you teach the entire year. So, it really depends on the situation that I'm given. In any case, I am willing to do it all.
I am not trying to become an ALT because it is easy. That is not the point. I need a way to maintain myself while studying Japanese and I am willing to work to stay in the country. Being an ALT is considered an entry-level job and through those kinds of jobs do you get experience. The best thing is to improve the skills I have. That's what is the most important part. You can't simply do something without skills, but you cannot create skills if you don't have it. Like art. I've done it for years and I've improved so much. I had to start making shitty art somewhere and from then on improve as much as I can.
Don't worry about doujin stuff. As you have said, you have not read LJ recently. I have already released doujin work in Japan. Also, it is nothing like USA's scene. At all. Japan has a wonderful self-publishing culture compared to the US. It's much easier for a relatively unknown artist to publish things & sell it at comic market events provided they have the time and money to invest in it. That's what I find so beautiful about the self-publishing market in Japan.
I should have been more specific-- my dream career would be to work in the video game industry. I don't care where it is-- Japan, UK, America, etc.
This isn't for the "romantic reasons." I see that you've read the comments above and based a lot of your thoughts on them... they were assumptions the poster above made.
It's not for the friends. I am going for the sake of learning Japanese-- a goal that is for me and only me. If these friends stop talking to me, it won't change the goal I am trying to complete-- studying Japanese. I am not afraid to lose friends. I have lost plenty of friends over the years and gained even more than those that I have lost.
I have studied Japanese endlessly for two years now and I feel there is a better chance for my Japanese to improve in the country because after I visited for just two weeks, I started speaking conversational Japanese. Imagine what it'll do for me if it was one year! It wasn't like I was trying super hard or anything in those two weeks. Yet, I improved.
I truly appreciate that you are concerned but I am not worried at all. The reason I am going for is purely for myself. The other factors, while they may suck if my friends stop talking to me, will not kill me in the long run. In fact, I did not even think about that. Why think about something that has not happened yet? Why focus on "failures" when they haven't happened yet? It is not the time to worry about if you will have a house in 20 years if you are simply starting out now. It is not the time to worry about what happens about your car you just purchased in 20 years when you have not driven it for 20 years yet.
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The reason why I was concerned, though, was because it sounded from your entry that your primary motivation for becoming more proficient in Japanese was to improve communications with your friends, not your career. (I've also forgotten that you learned English as a second language...for someone not comfortable in it, you use it a lot better than my monolingual self.) In your replies you make it a lot clearer the professional reasons are just as important and you've planned this out. I apologize for the mistaken assumptions on my part.
I suppose I'm biased because I've been hurt by friends. I had friends -- not just Internet friends, but face-to-face friends who I've known for a decade -- and almost invariably, every last one of them have turned on me at one point or another. Heck, I've known magnus-samma about as along as I've known you, and you see what happened there. If I had decided to move to another country, even Canada, a country that shares the same language and much cultural history as the United States, then I would be stuck and disillusioned if my Canadian friends pulled the same junk. I couldn't even fathom living in Japan given the vast cultural differences.
Then again, staying in my hometown didn't get me ahead either. Being a clerical worker was supposed to be my ticket in to organization I work for. Five years later, I have the same job title with more work to do and am still in the entry level position. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for having a job and I don't despise my work, but it rendered all that work I did studying for naught.
I guess, speaking from personal experience, you do have to worry about failure or else you won't have a back up plan. For instance, if you think you can buy a house and go for it, it might not work out. You don't want to wind up with house which is costing you too much money to maintain, but won't sell because the housing market is slow and it's not in sellable condition. I mean, if you think you will succeed, then it makes it all the more devastating when you fail.
I suppose I can't understand because there are countless activities I've tried, put time and effort into, but to no avail. Typically, I don't get better, and in some cases, I get worse. Furthermore no one cares about anything else I write, or say, or do, or make, so I guess I have a different perspective than you on life in general. If you work toward getting better, but end up failing for one reason or another, pretty soon you realize that all that work was for nothing. I'm sorry for projecting my failings onto you.
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If I think I will succeed and I didn't make it, at least I tried. It's better than not trying, which is truly the end of that. Onward to something else after that.
I don't think of things as failures. I think of things as opportunities... and perspective changes a lot. Do you see yourself as a failure? How about the things you've done? I see things as mistakes. You learn from mistakes. If you don't, then it's just stupidity... you can learn from everything.
I think to improve oneself you have to focus on the right thing. Maybe what you've done so far is addressing the wrong issue?
It's not like I haven't been hurt by friends. I've been hurt, I've been lied to, bridges were burned, and some were rebuilt. In this life, people come and go... and nothing says you can't make new friends. I've had plenty of downs and I've had plenty of ups, and if I only focus on my downs, I don't think I would have gotten so many ups as I've had in my life so far. Focus is so important. If I'm going to spend all day crying about how something went wrong, nothing happens in that day except crying. Of course, it takes time to heal, but... if it's been a long time after it happened, maybe it's time to move on, stop the crying, and do something to change it.
People get along, people misunderstand, people solve things, people leave each other... all sorts of things happen with friends and family, but it doesn't mean that because bad things happened in the past that it'll happen again. If I think like that, I can only think that it'll definitely happen again and that's not the kind of life I want to live. I want to live a life where I can at least have some semblance of control, enough to give myself a stable, level-headed mindset to help me progress further, not backward.
When I was living during the most depressing time of my life, I put up with it thinking that it's really what was left. I thought I was stupid because she told me I was. I lived for her, and not for me. One morning, I woke up and the first thought was, "I don't want this anymore." And from than day on, something changed--I changed, and if things didn't change, I made the effort to try and change it...
What works for me may not work for everyone else, but I really do think perspective is important... I've been hurt so many times, I've been in mental situations that I think no person should ever be at, but if I were to live my life in fear of those things happening again, I'll never be able to climb trees anymore.
Reply
It's not over yet. You can change it. You can try to search for another job somewhere else, something more worthwhile, something not entry level, something that pays more. You have to work for that, though. I wouldn't suggest leaving your job until you find a new one. Most people who just start jobs always jump to other jobs after they get hired. There's always opportunity... you have to seek it.
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