On Recontracting
So... This Friday my papers for RECONTRACTING are due. Which is terrrrriffying. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate making decisions. I am currently leaning 64 1/2 towards staying and 35 1/2 towards not re-contracting. Which could lead to any number of options, this includes, but is not limited to; backpacking around SE Asia until my funds run up, returning to South America until my funds run out, coming home and getting a "real job" in a lab while I apply to graduate school, or opening a combination vegetarian restaurant/cult headquarters in Phoenix, AZ with Mac. He'd run the restaurant, I'd manage the cult. We just need an inspirational/insane leader. Maybe I could get Josh to join us.
I'd like to make a short list of the reasons to stay or reasons to go, so that my Dear Readers can offer their advice, experiences, or vegetarian recipes for our new restaurant.
Should I Stay or Should I Go (now...)
Stay:
1.
2. Aikido. I love my dojo here, the training is great and I just want to be on the mat as much as possible. Also, in the event that I fail my shodan test I can try again in September. (Joku desu)
3. I think I'm just starting to scratch the surface of things to experience while I'm here. I think the first half of my year here has been finding out about the cool things to do; now I just have to do them. For instance, my prefecture apparently has great skiing North of Himeji, but I've been too busy preparing for my shodan and MCAT tests to make it up there yet. Next year I want to learn how to snowboard. Another example, I met a Shokuhachi master (Japanese flute) on Thursday who offered to teach a few of us twice a month. There is also any number of beautiful old places to visit, temples to see, I want to get into some parks and things this summer.
4. Learn a little more Japanese. I've been a bit too busy to study much, but after April want to really catch up on my studies.
5. I've met a lot of really great people here that I'd hate to leave so early.
6. I want to travel outside of
7. Having a place that feels like home. After a few nights out of town, I can walk out of the train station, see the castle up the road and let out a sigh of familiarity. These are the streets I know, these are my favorite restaurants, this is where my friends hang out.
8. Having people visit me and show them my town!
9. Having one more year to sort of goof off before starting "real life".
Go:
1. Central heating.
2. I'm ancy to get back in school/ start an actual "career path." Most of the people over here as ALT's have degrees in things like English, East Asian Studies, and the like. Or they are actual teachers. I feel like I'm wasting my degree in Biology by not putting it to use. Is that silly?
3. Japanese schools. I really liked the last school I was at, Toyotomi, but this year I started at a different school which I don't like as much. It's twice the size and the teachers seem more rushed and less friendly. Maybe I just need a period of adjustment to the new place. But I have no assurance that next fall I will go back to Toyotomi (I will change schools twice again if I re-contract). I could go to a better school, or a worse one. I really like the kids though. The girls always come up to me and try and talk, and try even harder to get me to remember their names. I occasionally run into them in town and they yell "Oh! Allison Sensei!" But, work is work, right? I love teaching at elementary schools though. There isn't this pressure to maaaake the kids learn English, we just play games and it's great. Last week the teacher wanted to teach "Shall we..." So instead of a big rigid lesson, we played "Shall we go to the Zoo?" And all the kids got to pretend to be animals. I taught the penguin dance to my favorite group of girls (class 5-4). The really ADD kids all wanted to be monkeys so they could shriek and jump up and down and scratch their armpits.
So... yeah. I'm leaning towards staying another year. Take the MCAT in April, work on med school applications from here, fly home for interviews twice in 2006, and see the family and my dog... Thoughts? Leave your comments, and I may or may not take head of your advice.
posted by aburke @ 8:10 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Who are you kidding, there's no "decision" to be made, you're staying. Gimme a break - when your alternative options sound as appealing as "Start in the 'REAL WORLD'" and "Work in a lab," vs. "teach kids how to be penguins and monkeys and get paid for it," yeeeeeah. Sounds like a torturous decision to me.
On the other hand, you could come back and do the veggie restaurant idea. I am well-studied in the proper look and feel of these restaurants which do good business. I would be honored to be your cult leader. We can put stupid pictures of me on the walls with quotes below them, and in the menu, and write in stupid quotes of mine from my Japan blog. Ones that sound like they should be deep but really aren't saying much of anything, or are instead just weird and cheesy. Ones that leave enough to personal interpretation to attract the widest audience.
For your review:
"we’ll live this way together forever, in treehouses in the forest, like Ewoks, soft and furry and cute, I’ll overlook all your flaws, and I’ll be fine forever as long as I can see God through the reflective pool of your eyes. Together we are conduits …"
"Discomfort often leads to good things"
"When you realize that you are getting what you wanted but you don't know how it happened. Well are you stunned? Are you like the Talking Heads?"
"some people might wake up in the morning at the campsite and see the piping hot poop balls and simply yawn, scratch their stomach, stretch, and wonder where they put their tooth brush, and get caught into the next moment."
"Shay said Allison has beautiful eyes. Yup, she does. She's sitting in the kitchen in the sunshine, not bright sunshine but reflected sunshine, and they're really amazing. Like, there's this rad ring at Forres that I want to buy which is some kind of big blue crystal gem and it's all glowy and sparkly and that's what her eyes look like."
" Responses and opinions given when unrequested are overrated."
"While we know it is nice to give or receive, we may not acknowledge the greatness of the acts of giving and receiving and the rhythm they create while promoting community, tolerance, peace, forgiveness and mercy, both for others and ourselves."
"Sometimes more is just more quantity and adds no value." (You can have smaller portion sizes if you use this one on the wall.)
"Karaoke every night
dodododododododod dododododododododod dodododododododododo dodododododododododo blah blah blah blahhhhh blah blah blah blahhhhhh blah blah blah blahhhhh blah blah blah blahhhhhhh and am I part of the cure, or am I part of the disease singin yoooooooooooou ahhhhh ahhhhhh youuuuuuuuuuu ahhhhhhhh!"
Please let me know what you think of my resume for Cult head. If you don't like my personal quotes, we can simply use Engrish off of shirts in Japan. I don't anticipate that the cult will get big enough for the people who wrote the quotes in Japan to find out about them. If they do, we can all just skip town and start a new cult somewhere else. Apparently this works well with cults.
Allison,
You should stay. You're not wasting your degree. That's impossible. You might not get another chance to spend a year in Japan doing this. In fact, you most definitely will not. So stay. If nothing else, it will make for another interesting chapter in your memoirs.
Oh, and thanks for spreading the penguin dance to Japan. I'm trying to get it to catch on in Houston.
Chris. I think you could be a strong candidate for cult leader. Please submit a resume and cover letter as soon as is convenient. Applications are still being accepted.
That's not to say we, the management at "Vegan delight and eternal bliss," have overlooked Gwynne Sullivan's fine qualities and high potential for cult head and ultimate being.
I'd like to apply to be your insane cult leader...let me know the requirements (would a loin cloth and the tibetan idiot dance mean anything to the decision-makers?)
Would it? We, the steering commitee for 'eternal bliss and vegan delight', feel that a cult dance will be invaluable in the winter months, as we plan to model our bunkhouse off of the Japanese system of not heating anything. A good Tibetan Idiot dance would satisfy the need for a morning, afternoon, and evening warmup necessary to keep the feeling going in our believers' toes.
As for the loincloth, what color is it? We are looking to import silk fundoshis from here in Japan, but need to discriminate by rank.
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