(no subject)
For once, things to do are rising up in front of me - skyscrapers in a cityscape. My future has contour; a road defined and sculpted by the occasional excitement; and I feel less like a black-coated widow in her snowy wilderness, wondering for miles without a sight of a house.
Far, far in the future - further than it looks from here, where it occupies a huge part of my visual field - is Tokyo, my metallic gem. I am going to go; I’ve decided. What I like about sado, to a great extent, is not what I like about sado, but what I like about Japan. There are parts - small lumps of my experience here, either past or present, which feel so achingly perfect that I don’t want to leave them. Lazy Sundays alone, in my dark apartment, with the food of the moment and the book of the moment and a wonderful film, bustling around like an old maid. The children at niibo. But I have never lived and been without these lumps. If I don’t have lumps like these in Tokyo, then I’ll struggle to make them. And I can always go home. The truth is, my main school next year will probably be Ogi, where I am today. Where one class will not talk, and most of the rest are still scared to speak; there is little doubt why, when the main teacher conducts the whole lesson in Japanese, can’t speak English. Where I want to scream at how wrong it is. I look at the other ALTs on sado who have stayed for 2 years, mainly for monetary reasons, and they all hate teaching, moan about the Japanese. Maybe it is understandable to be stuck in a living situation you hate when you are familied, attached, committed. But I am my age, and it’s not okay to be moaning about Sado if to live here for another year is a choice that I make.
And other things, too. Dinner with an art teacher tonight, rehearsal for a concert that I am playing in on Wednesday, a yakitori outing on thursday, cards and scrabble night on Friday. These are not huge, but they mean not sitting at a computer of an evening and feeling sleepy. Although I am really sleep-deprived at the moment.
Far, far in the future - further than it looks from here, where it occupies a huge part of my visual field - is Tokyo, my metallic gem. I am going to go; I’ve decided. What I like about sado, to a great extent, is not what I like about sado, but what I like about Japan. There are parts - small lumps of my experience here, either past or present, which feel so achingly perfect that I don’t want to leave them. Lazy Sundays alone, in my dark apartment, with the food of the moment and the book of the moment and a wonderful film, bustling around like an old maid. The children at niibo. But I have never lived and been without these lumps. If I don’t have lumps like these in Tokyo, then I’ll struggle to make them. And I can always go home. The truth is, my main school next year will probably be Ogi, where I am today. Where one class will not talk, and most of the rest are still scared to speak; there is little doubt why, when the main teacher conducts the whole lesson in Japanese, can’t speak English. Where I want to scream at how wrong it is. I look at the other ALTs on sado who have stayed for 2 years, mainly for monetary reasons, and they all hate teaching, moan about the Japanese. Maybe it is understandable to be stuck in a living situation you hate when you are familied, attached, committed. But I am my age, and it’s not okay to be moaning about Sado if to live here for another year is a choice that I make.
And other things, too. Dinner with an art teacher tonight, rehearsal for a concert that I am playing in on Wednesday, a yakitori outing on thursday, cards and scrabble night on Friday. These are not huge, but they mean not sitting at a computer of an evening and feeling sleepy. Although I am really sleep-deprived at the moment.