The Beginning
This is the first holiday I’ve had in long, long time. Let’s see what I can do here…. I’ve never used anything like this before. When I’ve seen others using it, it seemed too much of an introverted thing to do. You know, an introverted person trying to be extroverted by putting up an online diary that nobody in the world cares to see. But my main purpose for starting this is to make sure my friends (whom I never write to anymore) don’t think I’m dead.

Me, Now
So, where do I start? I’m teaching 6 days a week now, usually between 11-14 hours a day. I work so much there isn’t much time for anything else. But that’s perfectly fine. In fact, that’s the way I want it. Two reasons. One, I am so exhausted every night I don’t have to think about things I don’t want to think about (i.e. the past 3 years). Two, I can save money for school. When I can’t get paid to work, I work for free.

I work at two different English schools and do private tutoring, teaching about 100 people per week, give or take a 10-20 due to cancellations, substitute teaching, etc. Most of my students are children under age 12, but I teach some adults, too.

Proud to be an English Teacher
When people ask me what my job is, I’m not very proud to say I’m an English teacher. If you’re thinking of an English teacher in Tokyo as some sort of academic, forget it. A lot of them here can’t spell … or even speak grammatically. In this country, studying English is an amazingly common hobby, a widespread past-time. Japanese people study English like Americans watch sports. With the limitless supply of “students,” there is an unending demand for English teachers. You need no qualifications to be an English teacher. You only need to be blond and/or blue-eyed. It’s a plus if you have a British or American accent. (Despite the great number of “teachers” from New Zealand and Australia, their accents are not very popular in the business.) For people like me, who are brown-haired and brown-eyed, it’s a bit harder getting an English-teaching job, but thanks to Papa’s Celtic-Anglo-Saxon-Teutonic ancestry, I look acceptably foreign enough to Japanese eyes to make up for Mama’s Chinese ancestors.

Teaching Children English
An English teacher who teaches children is a glorified baby-sitter. ‘Nuff said. Most of them never learn anything. Case in point: two 10-year-old students of mine have been learning English since they were 3 years old. They still cannot say a single coherent sentence in English … or even write the alphabet, for that matter. The vast majority of their parents don’t want me to teach them any grammar, or vocabulary, or reading, or writing. They just want me to play games and teach them “English conversation” for 45 to 60 minutes a week. I’d like to know how someone is supposed to converse in a language without knowing any words or grammar, but that’s what they want and they get upset if you try to do anything else. So they’re getting what they asked for, and the amazing part is they’re perfectly satisfied with it.

Quasi-Shrink/Entertainer
An English teacher who teaches adults is a dummified shrink. Though there is the occasional student who is truly serious about mastering the English language (but usually doesn’t), more often than not, adult English classes tend to be social gatherings for housewives or a place for people to unwind after a long day at work. An English teacher is either a shrink, or an entertainer, or both. I’m not much good at being a shrink or an entertainer. I don’t think I’ll ever amount to much of an entertainer, but I’m getting used to the shrink part.

Really Not So Bad
Make no mistake. I like my students, adults or children. I’ve become good friends with most them. But in the 5 months since I’ve started working, I’ve realized that short of a miracle, probably none of them will learn English to any significant degree. Some of them realize that, some don’t. And the “classes” continue merrily on. As long as I don’t think of myself as teaching them English, I’m happy during classes. It’s fun meeting a lot of people and hearing them tell tales of their personal lives, happy, sad, funny, sordid, whatever. (One married woman kept wanting to talk about an affair she was having, making me and the other students a bit uncomfortable.)

After spending an entire day listening to Japanese elementary school children’s slang and adults’ broken English, I’ve found my English level and my Japanese level plummeting at an alarming rate. I am trying to keep up by reading Dostoevski’s Devils to and from work.

The Beauty of Tutoring
Now, on to the brighter side in my life: tutoring. I am tutoring a number of children. These are the kids that make teaching worthwhile. Granted, every kid, and every teacher for that matter, has ups and downs. But the past few months, since last summer, almost everything has been going up, not down. Several of the children I’ve tutored for only three years (about ages 9-12) have reached the level they can converse in English (if they’re not too shy), watch a movie in English and understand it (albeit with English subtitles turned on), read an American high school level textbook about medieval Europe, and write e-mails in English. OK, yes, the e-mails are full of mistakes, but they’re understandable. To put this in perspective … these Japanese elementary school age kids are at the same level or higher than Japanese high school students.

I’m happy about that. Not all the tutoring classes I get paid for (that’s the “working for free” part I mentioned earlier) but they’re the most rewarding.

Back To School
But this crazy life can’t last too much longer. I’ve promised myself it has to end by the summer of 2003, and Lord willing, I’ll be back in school by autumn, 2003. I haven’t decided what to study yet. I’d like to study linguistics and/or theology. I can’t decide whether or not to go to graduate school, or seminary, or both. We’ll see. What I will do partially depends on which schools will accept me, considering the iffy college degree I have.

Miss Y’all
Check back here from time to time and write to me when you can. I miss you all. I know I haven’t written to any of you, but I hope you see why. And I hope I’ll be able to keep this blog thing updated.