Reading charlie's journal

Being a foreigner makes you really moody. All the culture shock does weird things to your emotions. But for about the last month I've been thinking about my job, and it's turning more negative.

Don't get me wrong. I love being the only native teacher at this school and having complete creative control. And everyone here is really nice and generally understanding. And aside from about five out of my 210 students, they're all great kids.

But with complete control comes complete responsibility. So I've bit into the Japanese work ethic, I think I work 50+ hours a week. But I quit counting a long time ago. Now is grading/finals season and only now am I starting to realize just how many things I am responsible for. And how many important things absolutely NO ONE bothered to tell me!

I talk to all the other foreign teachers in town, and out of all of them, I still think I have the best job with the best students. But this month I've been thinking about how many things make this job hard.

1. I teach different classes in all three years of high school, plus two years of junior high

2. I make my own materials for all my lessons except junior high

3. I translate the "What's happening today at school?" web page into English once a week (with a little help from Google language tools).

4. I'm involved in all English and Religion Department activities and meetings, even though I rarely understand what goes on at the meetings

So what I'm thinking right now is: A) look for a better job in Japan (I'm still checking Ohayosensei.com, thanks r_pendragon!). I even thought about taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test to help me get a job (Needless to say Orchid, I don't think the JPLT exactly useless anymore. When I started working here, I learned really fast how incomplete my Japanese is). or B) Go back to the states and find a large community of Japanese people - like in LA, Seattle or Chicago - or just generally work in ESL. But I have no idea where to start looking for jobs in those places - especially from overseas.

I've still got a year and a half left here, and I'm pluggin' away here. I like it. But I don't think I'm going to stay here forever.

But I still love Japanese people and Japanese culture. So if anyone knows anything about finding a job in Seattle, LA, Chicago, Sao Paulo, Madrid, or other cities with major Japanese populations, I'd love some information.

Thanks for reading.

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