14 December 2011

Stage 2

Posted by Roland under: JET .

While I won’t claim to be in a full blown depression (perhaps for reasons you’ll see soon), the honeymoon period of my time in Japan is definitely over. The excited faces and good weather has been replaced with more and more why-are-you-here faces and colder (and yet to get even colder) weather. This is natural, any new experience will be exciting at first, but once you settle into a rut, the shine of the beginning is replaced with the reality that things are not as great as you were told or thought they were going to be.

In any case, the timing for this is natural. It’s been a few months now into my stay. However, for many JET people, the winter is a dangerous time. That’s when many have to consider if they want to stick around for another year in Japan. We warned at orientation that many JETs say no to another year in the winter because of their stage two funk, only to regret that decision come Spring. Aware of this I’m doing what I can to convince myself that I won’t fall victim to the same trap and decline to come back for another year (at least for that specific reason).

I do admit to missing the big city life however. There was always something to do, see, eat, etc. in San Francisco. And easily, there were a lot more people my own age. But here in Amakusa, it’s a rural lifestyle, where most days have me pretty much just going home after school. I do enjoy the quiet life, but of course, there are times when even I want to go out and do something different. But those options are limited in Amakusa. Life is in danger of becoming a rut, it seems.

I’ve always been self-aware of my moods and try not to let it cloud my judgments. All in all, I’ll probably end up signing up for that extra year. But similar to how I hesitated on even accepting JET even though for almost all observers, it was a done deal, I’m doing the same thing here when it comes to doing that extra JET year. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I’ll actually know what I’m doing the second time around. It’s similar to how I decided to stay in the dorms in college for two years…although at the end of that, I knew two years was enough time in the dorms. Would two years be enough for me in Japan?

One of the big things I took away from my visit at the ALT Skills Development Conference (call it what it is, a mid-year conference for the Kumamoto JETs) is that my situation is really not that bad. I was treated to a lot of horror stories by other ALTs in Kumamoto. Bad kids, bad teachers they work with, bad living situations, etc. All in all, I can’t complain. Some ALTs were brought to tears when having to recount their experiences. It’s a mean thing to say, but really, I don’t have it as bad as some others.

In that respect, it gives me a certain sense of thanks for being where I am. That makes it harder to say no to Amakusa after just one year. It may be a Stage 2 funk I’m in now, but perhaps the peak has been overcome.

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