BEHOLD! The Rant of UTTER BOREDOM
TO MY READERS: For those of you following the blog update e-mail on teaching, please see the entry below ("Teaching at Last"). This one here is my second entry of the day and holds very little relevance to anything but my annoyance at having nothing to do today.
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Still sitting here in the office doing NOTHING...so I figure I might as well set out for a good ol' rant.
This has been a recurring thing in my work life from the very beginning--this issue of NOT ENOUGH TO DO. I hate being idle...even if I'm getting paid for it.
Call me a workaholic, but I feel the workplace should be a place of WORK, not endless hours of breaks and chatter and gossip with the occasional worthwhile task set in. Such was my experience previously, but here in Sotogahama, I've discovered a whole new breed of boring.
Some days (mostly my days at Tairadate JH), I am on my feet for the better part of the day, moving from class to class, settled well into the high of being busy and feeling useful. Other days (very often when I'm here in Kanita), I'm ready to storm into the Principal's office and demand he give me a task, or I'm going home (goddammit!). I'd rather walk the miles back to Tairadate than sit in this office being BORED AS HELL for HOURS on end!
I have yet to decide if it is the root of my problem or an accompanying bit of luck that my lack of stuff to do comes from my limitations in Japanese. If I were perfectly fluent, I wonder, would they pile my desk with papers to be copied, things to be typed up, or projects to be completed? I entertain the possibility, but the truth is, I very much doubt it. Here in Japan, Teacher A's work is Teacher A's work unless he asks Teacher B to help him out. Being turned away without better reason than that might drive me perfectly mad.
It's for reasons such as this that I have set myself to the task of setting up a pen pal relationship with my old school back home. I'm quite excited about the idea myself and have managed to make some of the teachers so as well (I expect He-sensei may balk at the idea at first, of course). If I can only get the thing to take flight, I'm sure I'll find myself with a lot more to do, but as of now, I'm left twiddling my thumbs, exhausting my fresh music supply on my iPod, and working swiftly through what used to look to be a good stack of unread novels I brought with me from home (about 8 books of at least 400 pages each that were meant to last me several months...I've worked through 3 already).
It's bad enough to have days in the elementary schools, or here at Kanita JH when I have only 1 or 2 classes in my 7 hour work day. The worst of it, however, is being sent to a school for a day of ABSOLUTE NOTHING. This has happened several times. I will have a school day on my schedule, will show up, and will proceed to sit at my desk ALL DAY with NOTHING to do--no classes, no meetings...essentially no purpose to my presence at the school that day. I'm really hoping these days are a transitional thing, as I don't think I could bear to do this regularly for 3 years.
...There. End of rant. I'm back to my book for an hour before I can go home.
*SIGH*
*********
Still sitting here in the office doing NOTHING...so I figure I might as well set out for a good ol' rant.
This has been a recurring thing in my work life from the very beginning--this issue of NOT ENOUGH TO DO. I hate being idle...even if I'm getting paid for it.
Call me a workaholic, but I feel the workplace should be a place of WORK, not endless hours of breaks and chatter and gossip with the occasional worthwhile task set in. Such was my experience previously, but here in Sotogahama, I've discovered a whole new breed of boring.
Some days (mostly my days at Tairadate JH), I am on my feet for the better part of the day, moving from class to class, settled well into the high of being busy and feeling useful. Other days (very often when I'm here in Kanita), I'm ready to storm into the Principal's office and demand he give me a task, or I'm going home (goddammit!). I'd rather walk the miles back to Tairadate than sit in this office being BORED AS HELL for HOURS on end!
I have yet to decide if it is the root of my problem or an accompanying bit of luck that my lack of stuff to do comes from my limitations in Japanese. If I were perfectly fluent, I wonder, would they pile my desk with papers to be copied, things to be typed up, or projects to be completed? I entertain the possibility, but the truth is, I very much doubt it. Here in Japan, Teacher A's work is Teacher A's work unless he asks Teacher B to help him out. Being turned away without better reason than that might drive me perfectly mad.
It's for reasons such as this that I have set myself to the task of setting up a pen pal relationship with my old school back home. I'm quite excited about the idea myself and have managed to make some of the teachers so as well (I expect He-sensei may balk at the idea at first, of course). If I can only get the thing to take flight, I'm sure I'll find myself with a lot more to do, but as of now, I'm left twiddling my thumbs, exhausting my fresh music supply on my iPod, and working swiftly through what used to look to be a good stack of unread novels I brought with me from home (about 8 books of at least 400 pages each that were meant to last me several months...I've worked through 3 already).
It's bad enough to have days in the elementary schools, or here at Kanita JH when I have only 1 or 2 classes in my 7 hour work day. The worst of it, however, is being sent to a school for a day of ABSOLUTE NOTHING. This has happened several times. I will have a school day on my schedule, will show up, and will proceed to sit at my desk ALL DAY with NOTHING to do--no classes, no meetings...essentially no purpose to my presence at the school that day. I'm really hoping these days are a transitional thing, as I don't think I could bear to do this regularly for 3 years.
...There. End of rant. I'm back to my book for an hour before I can go home.
*SIGH*