Thank God!

When I was younger and I would think about my future, I had so many dreams. I wanted to be archaeologist, thanks to Indiana Jones. I wanted to be a stunt double, a professional athelete, a professional traveler...and the list goes on. Of course, even when I was young, I realized that these were not acceptable careers to persue, so I settled on being a school teacher. It became my stock answer whenever anybody would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up. This went on until my senior year of high school when, suddenly, I had to actually make the choice. I opted to go to Delta instead of MLC-where 70% of my classmates went on to attend. I've always had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind, wondering if I made the wrong decision. (Of course, had I gone straight into MLC, I would not have had the opportunity to come to Japan and to do half of the things that I have been lucky enough to experience, not to mention the people I've met along the way. So, I guess it's not the life choice that's in question but the career choice.) In any case, the wonder is over.

When I came to Japan a year ago, I was looking forward to finding a teaching job--dispite my brother's insistence that I did NOT want to be an english teacher. I wanted to give it a shot and see if I am cut out to be a teacher or not. I can safely say now, I made a good choice. It's not that I dislike teaching. There have been many rewarding moments and many students who I really enjoy teaching. However, it is days like today (and EVERY Friday for that matter) that make me wish I could crawl in a hole and die. Not counting the adult classes, I have a kindergarten class, and 2 elementary school classes. The first and most difficult is the kindergarten class which has 4 students. 1 is a sweet, smart, and well mannered child. 1 is...well, she's not the brightest bulb in the bunch. 1 has a sitting disorder--she can't seem to sit for more than 1 minute at a time without getting up and running around the room. The last student is the very face of evil itself. After 55 minutes with them my normally low blood pressure is approaching the danger zone. Actually, the other classes aren't so bad. It's just that this kindergarten class puts me in such a foul mood that I cannot tolerate deviance. In fact, I feel sorry for the students who have the misfortune of following those 5 year-olds. Although I have to admit, there are other kindergarten classes that I actually enjoy, just the odds of having to tolerate kids like that for 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week makes me thank God every day for helping me make the right decision. Now the only problem is...what's the right decision?

On another topic, Jin just told me that he was hit by a car on his way home tonight. He was crossing on a green light when some jerk, talking on a cell phone, ran a red light. It was nothing serious, thank goodness, just some sore muscles and a bit of shock. And, in an unexpected show of humanity, the driver actually stopped to see if he was ok. As I have me mentioned before, that is one of my pet peeves about Japan. The cars are out of control and everyone is a target no matter where they are. In my experience, most don't even acknowledge the person they've hit...no matter how serious!
In any case, I thank God he's alright.

Posted by keldog at February 07, 2003 11:05 PM