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Jan. 31st, 2011 03:51 pmIt is that time again. This year is finally coming to a close, with barely a month and a half left until graduation, and I once again worry and fret and bite my nails about what to do. I have as many feelers out as I possibly can for (yet more ALT-type) positions in Japan but I feel like they're not enough. I've only heard back from one: A full-time elementary school position.
It's more money than what I make now and it's in Chiba (Ichikawa, to be exact, not in the middle of nowhere). Rent would be higher, though, and when I spoke to the current teacher there she mentioned that she's often the only teacher in the room. I simply don't have the confidence for it. Not only that, but she's not allowed to speak Japanese when the kids can hear her. Ever.
I don't know if I can do it.
Yet if I don't do it, there isn't anything else. There aren't any non-ALT positions that will take me seriously without at least the JLPT 2. Most wouldn't even with it - they want the JLPT 1. I could start looking for graduate school. I could go home and mooch off my mother. But if I ever wanted to try my hand at Japan after that, I'd have to go through the same ALT gig all over again anyway.
It wouldn't be so bad if I knew what I was going to do with myself, if I had some kind of backup plan for life. If I knew that I had something waiting in America after Japan, I could more easily give it up and come flying back and move right back in with mom. But I don't have that. I can't think of graduate school until I can think of something worth spending that money on. I can't think of work because jobs are so limited.
This is why I was never anxious to grow up as a kid. Why I wish fervently now that I never had to.
I hate being old at 25.
It's more money than what I make now and it's in Chiba (Ichikawa, to be exact, not in the middle of nowhere). Rent would be higher, though, and when I spoke to the current teacher there she mentioned that she's often the only teacher in the room. I simply don't have the confidence for it. Not only that, but she's not allowed to speak Japanese when the kids can hear her. Ever.
I don't know if I can do it.
Yet if I don't do it, there isn't anything else. There aren't any non-ALT positions that will take me seriously without at least the JLPT 2. Most wouldn't even with it - they want the JLPT 1. I could start looking for graduate school. I could go home and mooch off my mother. But if I ever wanted to try my hand at Japan after that, I'd have to go through the same ALT gig all over again anyway.
It wouldn't be so bad if I knew what I was going to do with myself, if I had some kind of backup plan for life. If I knew that I had something waiting in America after Japan, I could more easily give it up and come flying back and move right back in with mom. But I don't have that. I can't think of graduate school until I can think of something worth spending that money on. I can't think of work because jobs are so limited.
This is why I was never anxious to grow up as a kid. Why I wish fervently now that I never had to.
I hate being old at 25.
