Reading charlie's journal

So I just left an interview smiling. This is what I was thinking:

'Damn, I did good.'

'Wait. Damn it! I did good.'

'Why did I want to do badly?'

'Oh yeah, because this is a job for a company fifteen miles from my college, and I want to go and teach English in Japan.'

'You want to teach English in Japan?!?'

'Duh, that's why I filled out the application two months ago.'

'Then, what do I do? ...what do I do with my life? Should I take this job and the money, or hold out and tell them I have a crackpot dream of not doing anything tech related?'

'You can wait until they actually ask to hire you.'

'Oh. Okay, I guess.'

Please contiune to vote AND post.

Well, I know that this is your inner monologue, but I remember about your dream of going to Japan, because this is not the first time you bring it up (see? I am attentive to other users ;) )

I was wondering, do you already know Japanese? I mean, if you don't, and you want to teach English there... well it might be a hell for you to learn Japanese first and enough to teach to kids. Also, you know how they have more than one alphabet? Kids write in a way, adults in another. And you would need to learn both of them in fact.

Surely it would be a great experience of life: I mean going to another country and living there for a while. But then, I assume you might want to get back home, right? And you think that this "dream" of yours will help you find a job once you get back?

Unfortunately lately it is getting harder and harder to find a job that pays well enough for you to be able to live comfortably, without having to care much about your financial situation. So choosing a teaching career might cut off your legs right from the start.

You know why I am telling you this? Because I would like to teach English and German literature in a highschool or work at the university as a researcher. That's my dream. Though, as my cousin pointed out, that really would cut my legs off. Once I become a teacher... well it's not that if later on I want to find a better job, that old job of mine will constitute such a wonderful thing in my resume that will make everybody scream "let's hire her!".

So teaching might be good, but only if you are totally dedicated: you don't earn a lot of money, you have to realize that. If you are a teacher, then you have to have some kind of vocation nowadays. I know that if I were a teacher, I would strive to be the best teacher in the world for my kids, because I know what kind of teachers I have had, and I know that I would not want to be like them for the new generations.

If you have this vocation to teach children, and be paid basically nothing, then I would tell you to go ahead. But if you too are concerned about money, and you would choose to teach English in Japan only as a way to get away from your home for a while, well I would tell you that you're probably making a mistake.

But afterall this is your decision; you know what is best for you. You just need to clarify yourself about it, and reflect upon it.
Good luck about your choice!

Un bacio è un'apostrofo rosa scritto tra le parole "ti amo".

but I remember about your dream of going to Japan, because this is not the first time you bring it up (see? I am attentive to other users ;) )

Wow, I didn't think anyone read my journals. They're kind of an opportunity for me to tell what's going on in my life, and let people see how much of a jerk I am.

Anyway...

Yeah, I know teaching doesn't pay. My dad is a high school teacher, and all his life I've seen him work too hard for not enough pay (I think he has a had a summer job on the side ever since he started being a teacher).

I told myself all through college that I would never become a teacher, and I would never let myself be abused like that. But I go to college, make friends with some Japanese students, one of them teaches me Japanese, they invited me to Japan for two weeks last summer, and suddenly I'm interested in teaching English in Japan.

It's kind of a way to fund the study abroad I never had - and I get to work with a lot more native people this way. It's only a two year commitment. I don't think I want to do this for a career. I want to come back to the states and eventually use my BA.

I've been told that after five years any place feels like home. But my biggest worry will be how my parents will deal with me being gone. My little brother goes to college next fall and my folks will have an empty nest. In two years things may change a little, and in five my parents will probably retire. I think I should maybe be home for that.

Please contiune to vote AND post.

Yeah, your suppose to get pigion hold into what you've been doing and not have any dreams. It's the way of business in this world and if you fight to keep your dreams alive, then people will do one of two things:

Buisnesses: Look at you and shake their heads because your not being a good obedient little what ever and doing the lemming thing.

Friends and family who know you and know what your dream and heart's cry is: "you should be..why arn't you..."

And your left standing there wondering why no one is listening and no one pays any attention and it can feel damn cold.
No matter how loud you scream, or how well you do in an interview, it's the same.
And what really sucks is no matter how good your qualifications are or how efficant you are, meaning how well YOU know you can do something, it would seem that the people with the power to help you aren't interested in helping you. And why is this so?
Because they want to control what you do.

And it sucks!!!!!

It makes anarchists out of the best of us because we have found that rebellion against the status quo is the only way to be heard.
It would be marvelous if in this world, what you were gifted with what was you ended up doing. No questions asked.
IF you were good with numbers all your life, then the places you got to choose from were in fields that delt with numbers.
IF you were good speaker, and could get ideas across, you could chose from things that fit that bill.

In tribal cultures, what a person does in that tribe is decited on by what activities a child draws to.
There isn't all this stupid crap of well, this is the way things are and you have to do this or that bulshit.

I say, if you want to teach English in Japan, go for it! I say fuck um if the powers that be try to pigion hole you.
(I'm facing the same crap with all the employment agencies that I'm signed up with)
They see your good with computers, so they assume that's where you should work, and not go with what you want.
The best revenge against assholes like that is to prove they don't have a fucking clue.
(Can you tell I'm pissed?)

I'm an artist. I have excellent skills at leadership, but I'm an artist.
I'm kick ass at assembly work, I pick things up very, very fast, I can walk in have somthing I've never done before shown to me maybe three times and I'm off at high speed with little or no mistakes. BUT I'M AN ARTIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have extroidnary customer skills, I can listen to someone and know what it is that they want, even if they are confused about it and help them figure out what it is that they want.
BUT I'M AN ARTIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No one is listening. I have all these skills, but my heart is that of an artist. It's where everything flows the best, and makes sense the most.
And do you know what these asholes do? They keep trying to shove me in factory work.
I fill out applications, go to interviews, and it ends up the same.
They arn't listening.
All they can see is that I'm great at assembling things.

So, like you, the powers that be are trying to silence my dreams and as a result, I'm in between jobs right now and have all these people who know me, giving me all kinds of ideas with no practical substance to go with it.

Some of the other "great" side effects of this madness are depression, frustration, anger, thoughts of sucide and fear that all of what I've been doing all these years was and is a huge waste of time and my life.

IF you want to teach English in Japan, then do it...I don't know how, I wish I did. But I don't know any of the ways to get there, although Pendragon might, she teaches in japan, and she would know how to help you get what need to get there.

For as frustrated as I am, I would love to see you follow your heart, and suceed, and win and show all those people who have tried to pigon hole you just how wrong they are.

It only looks that way because your standing on your head.

I think harold_maude hits the nail on the head their, it all comes down to money right, and if what you want to do isnt bringing any in, then you have to go do something you dont want to do, but can do, sort of the situation im in. Thats why in school they never have lessons where you do the talking, because some kids are so talented at something, but like you say its drained out of them. They have to go to maths then english e.t.c which granted are vital skills, but if little johnny cant add two plus two they think somethings wrong with him, wheras maybe his true talent in life is being ignored. Some people just aren’t meant to read – their eyes get illusions between the lines of black and white text. This gives them headaches. Carrying on the theory, if some people aren’t designed to read, maybe they are designed for something else, perhaps something that requires more instinct than learning. Are we teaching these other skills out of our children before they’ve had a chance to excel at their own subject?
But i wish you luck charlie mate.

If you do end up in a job that you hate, take advice from watching this short film http://www.atomfilms.com/landing/landingIndex.jsp?id=lunch&mature=accept

themoreyouknowthemoreyouknowyoudontknowwhatyouknow

This post was edited by Disposable_Fishspastic on Jun 07, 2005.