Work

Warning! The following is somewhat of a rant. I guess I'm just spoiled by having had my business for so long and not having to have been in a corporate environment...

Japan itself is great. I love the food, the people, the architecture, the aesthetic, the culture. The language barrier hasn't proven to be as difficult as I had thought it might be. I get along rather well in fact. Basically everything I had concerns about proved to be just fine.

The issues have actually been with things I thought would be easier. Work isn't what I'd hoped for. The pay is not how they represented it, and so affording to live here while still paying debt at home has been a serious stressor for me. If nothing had changed, I would have gotten further into debt and unable to stay here at all. I had to accept loans from people at home, and feeling dependent has never made me feel good about myself. That being said, I am SO grateful for every bit of support I've received! At the moment, I have switched to the night shift to make the money I need to make. I work from 10:30pm until 7:30am with a break from 3-5am. It's messed with my sleeping patterns and eating patterns and social life, but at the moment it's necessary to survive.

This company is truly a nightmare from an administrative angle too. Any changes we want to make require a request more than 30 days in advance, including any days off or vacation time. And then they may not grant those requests, telling you only a few days before you were hoping to have them. the above picture is my company's logo. It's some sort of bunny with a chicken's beak that hatches out of an egg filled with smaller eggs. It makes no sense. Just like the company.

Starting out wasn't easy either. It was difficult to go through training. They sort of threw us in quickly without much instruction. It's weird to be teaching over the computer, and for what I expected out of Japan, the technology is sort of rudimentary, for some reason. they don't seem like they've put too much into the interface. We are running about 7 different types of software at once that don't communicate with one another. The tech training was so tough.

My job isn't satisfying to me. It's more of a customer service job with teaching on the side. I'd much rather be in front of my students, and while it has its rewarding moments, it's not been what I was hoping for. Plus, It's very difficult to make a connection with three students in a 40-minute period. And it's rare that you ever see the same students. There are over 400 English teachers in my center, and over 300,000 students! I don't get to watch their continued growth, so it's sort of a flash in the pan.

That being said, I do love teaching. It's a beautiful thing to help them and watch them grow. I've always been a fan of watching the light bulb go off over someone's head. It's a good feeling. And it turns out that I'm a funny and effective teacher at that. Must be my genes...

Some of our classes are one-on-one right now, and others are three students at a time. I've learned that I'm better at the one-on-ones because I get to actually connect with the students. I've applied to be transferred to a branch classroom location in Kyoto to eliminate my 90-minute each way commute. That should give me more time to take on private students. In fact, I have my first full private lesson in just over an hour and am excited to be teaching two middle-aged housewives. Should be interesting.