Okay, I Missed You

I guess I didn’t truly realize until now how few people around me are actually ‘like’ me. By ‘like’ I mean people who had a least a few of the same experiences growing up as I did – TCK kinda stuff. I’m in the country I grew up in, yes, but nearly all my high school classmates, or any classmates, for that matter, are not here. They’re in America or elsewhere.

My circles, presently, consist of family, work, Hi-B.A., and church. Family is hardly a circle, but I included it because I realized it’s not actually a given. I was away from them last year and I will be next year. So I’m enjoying it now (that’s the proper thing to say). But it’s only my parents, and while I like them a lot, I don’t make myself vulnerable to them. That may sound like a weird way to say it. What I mean is that I talk a lot about what I’m passionate about, and they indulge me by listening, but I don’t share what I struggle with.

Work is teaching English at Gaba. My ‘clients’ range from university students to housewives to businessmen. The conversations are interesting, but it’s not about me, it’s about them – they’re paying to learn. I try to get as much as I can out of the conversations while still meeting their needs, and at the same time, I try to give them as much as possible without overstepping my bounds. It’s a good time, considering I’m getting paid for it. I wouldn’t call them friends. My coworkers are a hugely diverse lot, and quite different from me. Though I enjoy them immensely and share my experiences while listening to theirs, the connections are fairly light at this point. It’s limited to our interactions during mutual work hours, though that may change in the future.

Hi-B.A. is probably the closest company to where I came from (it is at the high school I graduated from, after all). But on the other hand, the students are all younger than me and the staff are all older.

I feel I need to add at this point, at least for my own relief, that I’m not complaining. Each of the circles I’m describing are basically how they should be. I’m not pointing out faults, I’m just explaining a need I realized I have and why it’s not being met at present. I hope you understand.

When I’m at Hi-B.A. I feel I have a purpose to accomplish, that is, the spiritual strengthening of the students who come. Not that that’s up to me, but I try to play a part. Not to say that I don’t merely enjoy their company as well. I do. But it’s a different company than my own friends.

And church is…unsatisfactory. It feels really old to me. Even though it has more young people than most Japanese churches, the young people feel old to me in the sense that they fit in to what has already been established and don’t seem to seek to change it. I’m not so much of a rebel (take that statement with a grain of salt), but I do want to see people being fulfilled in their identity rather than fitting themselves into someone else’s paradigm.

I want to go to a Japanese church because I want to be involved in the ministry instead of remaining within a foreign, Christian bubble (not to say that’s what certain people are doing). My place is in the field. But I don’t think that means sacrificing my worship, fellowship, and learning needs. There’s a medium, no, there’s a third option somewhere. I haven’t found it yet.

I don’t think it would be right for me to leave the church without at least proposing some changes. And that doesn’t sit well with me because I’m hardwired to run away from problems. But I will devote some thought to what I would like to see happen, keeping in mind that it’s not about me, it’s about God.

Those are my circles, and none of them identify with me particularly well.

This isn’t a self-pity party! I promise! You can say “Suck it up” if you want, honest. I say it to myself a lot. But now I’m trying to figure out how to remedy this slight issue. I think I need to for my own sanity, before it gets worse.

Probably the reason I’m think about this now, or that I realized this now, is that Christmas break is coming to a close for most uni students, during which a lot of my friends did come back to Japan. We hung out, and it was really good. But now they’re leaving.

I thought I was satisfied here, with my little self-made prosperous life-after-college-which-is-really-my-year-saving-up-to-go-to-college. But the past strikes again. I miss my friends, I miss people I can relate to.

I don’t like saying that I miss people, so keep this under wraps, okay? It could damage my image if it got out.

The way I see it, there are several things I could do to improve my situation.

• I could spend more time communicating digitally with friends overseas, staying in touch through means like Facebook, Skype, and, oh, that retro thing called e-mail. Skype is the best option, but also the hardest to arrange. I spend too much time on Facebook, but if I switched my activities from perusing (read: stalking) to messaging, it might approach the classification of ‘time well-spent’. Maybe. Digital communication still leaves a lot to be desired; I think I can do better than this.
• I could invest more in the relationships I have, particularly those at Hi-B.A. I’ve been feeling lately like I’m not putting enough of myself into that. I particularly would like to have one or more AGs (Accountability Group – you checked your knee-jerk reactions at the door, remember) in order to get to know some guys better and be mutually strengthened through fellowship. This might be what I’m looking for, and I need to pursue it harder.
• The last thing I can think of is to develop my friendships with my classmates remaining in Japan. I’ve been trying to meet up with one of them for a while, and I’ve seen a few others in the past few months, but for the most part I’ve dropped out of contact with them because I didn’t talk with them much even during the school year. I would like that to change, and since I am an awkward sort of fellow, it might be difficult at first, but I think I will try to initiate something. I need more justification to mock returning students’ feeble attempts at ‘reunions’, at any rate.

That’s my plan of action to deal with this lack of connection that seems to have festered under the radar since last summer. My theme for 2010 is discipline, and I think that maintaining good communications with people who matter to me is a big part of that, both for me and for them.

Or I could just be spouting off of an emotional outpouring brought on by recent events. In any case, I apologize for not taking the time to proofread this entry before posting it.

Comment.

-Brad

Gaba and Gaijin

Amazing how much can change in so short a time. Last post I was plagued by a need for a job and no hopeful prospects. Now, I have a seemingly ideal job with contract signed and certification starting in three days. I’m going to be an English teacher at Gaba. They’re an English-teaching company in Japan that specializes in one-one-one lessons (“man-to-man”, as they call it, which of course sounds awful). I applied two months ago, and then again one month ago, and then again this month, because they put out a job posting on Gaijinpot.com every month (or maybe that’s just because they weren’t getting enough teachers – but if that were the case why didn’t they contact me sooner?). They were actually where I applied first this year, but after hearing nothing but a single rejection letter in two months, I had all but given up hope. I wasn’t going to apply in November, but I just happened to remember about the website after leaving in search of a Japanese job, and whaddaya know, I get the job this time.

I remember thinking as I applied for November that it would probably ironically work out this time, simply because I had come so far since my first time applying, in terms of courage to call (even Japanese) employers and do interviews, etc. Those were things worth learning, so I can’t be too mad that I didn’t get the job until now.

However, I’m definitely glad for it now. I was getting worried.

I felt so out of place at the first interview (information seminar, then brief cursory interview). There were probably eight of us, and though I probably looked fairly similar to the rest of the applicants, I felt so conspicuous. They all looked exactly like the stereotype of a Caucasian English teacher in Japan, mostly due to their formal dress. Like I said, I was dressed up too so I probably looked far less out of place than I felt. I think I was the youngest.

Another thing worth mentioning is that having grown up in Japan, I naturally assume that any foreigner I see on the street has less experience with the culture than me. So I avoid interaction with them, seeing as they will sooner or later do something extremely stupid and embarrassing and I will be associated with them because, to a Japanese, I look just like them. Funny, isn’t it? I’m a foreigner, and yet I’ve developed the same attitude towards them as the Japanese, that is, “He is a gaijin, he must be stupid and culturally inept. Must distance, must distance.” I only realized this a few years ago when I worked here with guy from America and he noted, “Foreigners here don’t associate with each other much, do they? They almost seem hostile.” Yeah. You are embarrassing me, go away, that’s what we think. Except in the case of this guy.

But now I willingly thrust myself into that environment and I’m going to stay in it because now they’re my colleagues. Ha. I don’t mind terribly. They’re interesting people. I’m just being forced to embrace my foreign self more than I’m used to doing when I’m here in Japan.

It’s quite an ideal job though. I submit when I’m willing to work each month and the clients sign up for times on the website. I can work as much or as little as I please. I hope there are a lot of students, because I want to earn a lot. I’m also going to be teaching kids. I was relieved to hear that that’s also one-on-one, because one kid is easier to manage than a group. I just hope I can keep him/her happy.

Most of the lessons are “blue-booked”, meaning that the client chooses the instructor based on prior experience or maybe just the profile and ten-second video on the website. I wonder how appealing mine is. It was quite awkward taking it, I hate those situations. It was funny to imagine weird videos though; for example the stereotypical American who came to Japan for the anime and maids and whatever else, and now finds that he still needs money to live on in his fantasy country. So he somehow manages to get a job with Gaba, and in his profile video belts out, “Konichiwa! My name is Bob Smith, I’m an otaku! I love Japan!!” And I imagine him doing the awesome Andy “I love Japan!!” face which involves him rolling his eyes back and…you know, better than me trying to explain it would be simply showing you. Here. Enjoy.

Like I said, he’s awesome. I don’t think he’ll mind me shooting him a little traffic, although maybe yes if I’m acquiring all sorts of creepy readers. Which I don’t think is the case, seeing as my daily view count is still in the single digits.

So now I have a job and will soon have a (presumably) stable source of income, but I’m still curious about making money with a blog. I figure it’s only a matter of time before word gets out about this, and then I’ll hardly know what to do with all the traffic. I hope you know me well enough by now to understand just how seriously I believe that sentence. If you don’t (because I’m not in the risk-taking mood right now), I believe it NOT AT ALL.

I was looking into putting ads on blogs, and I haven’t looked very far, but it seems to be very simple. I’ve also heard that you need at least a hundred views daily to start making money. Any thoughts on that? Yes, I know that I could just find a blog on that very topic, but I’m giving you a chance to speak up. Actually that’s wrong, you’ve had that chance ever since you stumbled onto this little waste pile of cognition. Now I’m giving you the invitation.

And everything is of course so much brighter now that I have a job coming. I can enjoy life. I can open my shutters and breathe in the sunlight. I can also get back to studying Japanese, because that test is closer than ever and I have so much left to study.

I have a lot of things I want to write to you about but it will have to wait because I’m still busy. I’ve worn a suit every day for the past three days – but I need to get used to it, because with Gaba’s dress code I’ll likely be wearing a suit six days a week from now on. I want to buy a suit rather than borrow my dad’s forever. I wonder if they have my size here, if it won’t be astronomically expensive, and if it will look cool.

Study time.

-Brad