Ramblings from a Gaijin in the Inaka

Former Tohoku JET, 2019-2024. I’m R and I have lived here for 5 years now. This isn’t a guide on JET or living in Japan or anything like that. This is me literally rambling & sharing stuff about my experiences at work and sometimes outside of work. Also just wanna say a quick thank you to all 4 of my followers who have stayed around this long. Holy shit people do sometimes look at this blog. I love you guys.

[ramblinggaijin]

For reference, I was having the kids do an activity where they order from a restaurant menu in English.

Boy 1: Sensei! Call the police!

Me: Why? What did your partner do?

Boy 2: I’m not paying.

Boy 1: See? Bad! Call the police!

Boy 2: Lol I’m going to jail now. Getting three years! XD

[ramblinggaijin]

Every coworker’s reaction whenever I tell them one of the other schools I work at is the local fisheries school:

Oh? You go there too? Aren’t those kids terrible?

The said terrible kids every time I come into class:

OMG IT’S R-SENSEI! POPULAR TEACHER! COOL TEACHER! Yaaayyy!!!!!

Yes, they are very low performing when it comes to English. And it’s nearly all boys so it’s a bit rowdy.

But I’ve been doing very simple ESL games with them for their lessons and they’ve been eating that up.

[ramblinggaijin]

Me at another school where they asked me to participate in the evacuation drill:

[ramblinggaijin]

Me to my coworker, who was also asked to stay behind during the school evacuation drill:

[ramblinggaijin]

Me: Alright guys, how are you today?

Tallest boy in this class of HS Seniors: I’M VERY VERY STRAWBERRY!!

[ramblinggaijin]

Reminder that racism is a problem in Japan.

Because here is what I heard about my predecessor at all of my schools (and tbh prbly a factor for why they quit without warning):

Me: So what did my pred do for their lessons?

Every HS JTE I met who worked with them: Ohhhh they did grammar lessons. Which was fine but we didn’t really want that tbh. Just do some silly games or something since you’re only here like twice a month.

Me: Okaaayyy interesting but easy enough. Anything else?

JTEs: Yeah, they were, you know -whispers- Fillipino. Anyways, we are sooo glad you are here! We love you already!

Me: -is American and white- O_O

[ramblinggaijin]

Me: -is tallying up the score-

JTE: Hey did you give the winning team bonus points? Cuz that’s more than what they have.

Me: Huh? -rechecks score- O_O

[ramblinggaijin]

One of my HS students wants to practice English with me during lunch. Super sweet kid! The cookies were a nice bonus! ^_^

[ramblinggaijin]

The kids called me the GOAT teacher for giving them extra points during a quiz game I had them playing.

[ramblinggaijin]

I had my students doing a grammar quiz challenge.

The expected answer: Why were you late?

The answer I received from one group: Why was love late?

[ramblinggaijin]

Pt. 3 of the insanity of the last 2 months

Recap but basically I had accepted an offer from Company A to go work at a remote location but commute from a major city which was nice. And was currently prepping to do that.

But the impossible happened!

Somebody in the prefecture I wanted to work in quit at the last minute. And it was conveniently in one of the cities I wanted to work in!

I hadn’t accepted a job offer so fast or enthusiastically since I got taken off the alternate list for JET. I nearly jumped through the roof when I got the news.

This also meant doing a complete 180 on moving plans since I had to start the following week.

Thankfully my company was able to book a hotel for me for two weeks while that was figured out. I have a cat so I can’t use their default company housing.

But after two weeks of living in a trippy cat hotel where I ate salmon for breakfast every morning and listened to Elvis Presley on the radio in a loop cuz the owner was obsessed with Elvis, I finally moved!

I’m teaching high schoolers this year which is a first. I’m also T1ing all my lessons cuz they’re basically supplementary conversation lessons. I have 6 schools again so I’m only at them maybe 1-2x a month.

I’m kind of just running the classes like advance ES classes because the levels vary greatly and the kids are usually down for fun games and getting stickers.

Anyways, it’s been a wild ride and I’m still coming down from it. My inaka brain is being constantly blown away by all the things I can do in this city.

But I’m starting to feel like a person again. Crazy how it’s all worked out so far!

[ramblinggaijin]

Pt. 2 of wtf has been going on the past 2 months

A recap but I decided to stay with Company A at the last min cuz Company B was starting to look increasingly sketchy and not worth it.

Anyways, I tell Company B I’m not going forward with them anymore.

Company B panics and then tells me they magically do have a placement for me in the prefecture I wanted to move to. I’m still feeling iffy about them so I say ‘no’.

Company A says since this was all last minute I not only have to transfer to another branch but they may not have a placement for me till later. But it may be a placement in the prefecture I wanted to move to or one in a neighboring prefecture. It will depend on how their presentations go with those BOEs as they’re still trying to secure contracts with them.

I tell them that’s fine cuz they can move me next year at worst.

And it turns out one of the placements they were still trying to secure was the one Company B magically had available. They were both competing against each other for that location, but neither had a final contract ready.

But only Company A was honest with me about it and told me it was up in the air while Company B lied and said they had it if that tells you anything.

Anyways, eventually Company A tells me they could only secure a placement for me in a neighboring prefecture. And it’s a super remote location with one school, but the town I’ll be commuting from is a major city which is nice.

I agree to it. And so I sign the contract, start looking for apartments, prepare to move four hours away and start teaching in a tiny school in the middle of no where.

And I’m resigned to this. While it’s not ideal I decided to just treat it as a vacation in that area and enjoy exploring it.

BUT THEN A GODDAMN MIRACLE HAPPENED (continued in pt 3)

[ramblinggaijin]

Ooohh where to begin? Well through an insane series of events, I ended up in a pretty good placement and I’m still with the same dispatch company believe it or not. Allow me to explain!

For clarity we’ll say the company I’ve been with since August is Company A and the one I almost switched to is Company B.

So I was gonna switch to Company B cuz they offered me a higher salary and were pretty confident that they could move me into the area I wanted to move to.

I know you gotta take what these companies say with a grain of salt. But they kept assuring me it could be done so I went with it.

Told Company A I wasn’t gonna renew my contract and would be leaving them at the end of March.

All was going well till March came and I still had no idea where I was moving to with Company B.

I’m trying to be patient and give them benefit of the doubt cuz late February-March is when dispatch companies are finding out if they’ve won certain placements/are having contracts renewed. Etc.

But after a few emails I received no response whatsoever until late March. They tell me they’re still figuring things out and to wait a little bit longer.

Then I do receive an email about my placement. And for some reason they decided to tell me this at midnight. On a Saturday. Japan Standard Time. From their office. Someone literally sent an email from their office at midnight on a weekend.

That was a big red flag cuz that’s just weird af. Not to mention it wasn’t any of the areas we had talked about.

So I decide to contact Company A. Ask them what they know about Company B and if it’s possible to stay with Company A. Cuz Company A has been pretty straightforward with me about stuff from the get-go.

Company A says while they try to be fair when talking about other dispatch companies, the branch of Company B I applied to has a pretty bad rep from what they’ve heard from the ALTs who have switched from Company B to Company A. Communication issues (which I had experienced) and issues with the management.

Company A says I can stay with them, but since I had sent my resignation paperwork back in February my position is being filled by someone else from overseas. So I still have to move.

As to where I moved to and how all that went down, I will tell you in part 2!

[ramblinggaijin]

Whoops I forgot to update for like 2 months. Will explain that in a bit. But I swear I didn’t die at the soubetsukai. But I did get wasted af. And received the nicest compliment ever during the farewell ceremony, which was “There are no bad people who like cats.”

[ramblinggaijin]

So I’m going to my JHS’s 送別会 (soubetsukai aka farewell party).

It’s being held after I finish up my last day there so I was going over some stuff with my colleagues.

Cuz it’s an overnight one at onsen resort and I have never stayed overnight for one before. All the ones I went to were just dinners.

Me: Hey so what is the dress code? Wanted to check cuz I messed up one year.

VP: It’s an onsen resort, yukatas of course!

(It was a joke, dress code is always suits. Would have been nice tho lol)

[ramblinggaijin]

For context we were doing a variation of gesture game.

Card in question: Octopus

Hyperactive 3rd grade ES girl: -drops to the floor, lays on her back, and wildly flails her limbs in the air-

[ramblinggaijin]

All of my colleagues at one of my ES’s standing at the doorway saying goodbye to me in the form of an elaborate cheer:

The poor postman who walked in on this and is now stuck standing awkwardly to the side with me while everyone cheers: