Brian’s Japan Adventure

January 12th, 2008

School Days Gone By

It was library/Internet day, so I did the usual routine as far as that is concerned. Just as I was finishing up there, I got my weekly call from home. It seems my diploma has arrived. Yay!  One thing I have always found fascinating is that you get no official confirmation of your graduation, even if you participate in the ceremony, until you get the diploma in your hand. People told me I would graduate, but there was never any official notice on either the registration website or in the mail. Up until today, they could have changed their minds for whatever reason.  It’s no big deal, I wasn’t in a hurry for the diploma, and they did the same thing with my Bachelor’s Degree a year and a half ago. It’s just slow.

An Oversight or a Hostage Situation?

I didn’t really expect that diploma till right about now, but one thing that I had expected earlier was my TEFL Certificate.  I still don’t have it.  Marc doesn’t have his either, but in his case I had just assumed he left something unfinished at home; some paper or project not yet turned in. I know for a fact that I am done with all of that. I have to think they are holding them until we return. If that is the case, then it seems inappropriate; many of the people I took the TEFL classes with had no specific plans to ever go anywhere, and I know they must have gotten their certificates long, long ago.  Perhaps they simply forgot ours since we didn’t get them at the end of summer. I guess this calls for an email to Dr. M back at the Home University.

Speaking of Dr. M back at the university, I wonder what they think of all this stuff in the blog? I know both of my TEFL teachers (Drs. M and C for the very longtime readers) knew about the blog.  I know Dr. M has read it, at least in the beginning. There were at least two other teachers at the school who knew of the blog as well, “C.” Who was my co-teacher with the Japanese Exchange Students last summer, and “K” who was the teacher for that very last memoir writing class. They’re all busy teachers, and probably aren’t keeping up with my rantings here, but if they are, I wonder what they think about all the stuff that goes on here.

What Are They Thinking?

If it comes right down to it, I doubt there is much that I write in this blog that doesn’t happen or go through the mind of everyone who participates in this program. Where do I differ from the “typical” student who comes over here and does this? I am older than most, no doubt. I don’t drink, which leads to a very different kind of social life than Marc. I just finished school, while most of the others are somewhere in the middle; this lets me be a little more critical of things since they can’t fail me now. And I am writing all my experiences and thoughts in a very public blog.  Overall, I don’t see where any of these would make that much difference in my perspective, and most other intern teachers would be doing the mostly the same things, although I suspect Marc’s lifestyle is more typical than my own for students over here.

Someone could read my blog reports and think that this program is a total fiasco or sham operation.  That’s not the case at all, although I do tend to complain a lot; that’s just me. Overall, from a professional standpoint, everything over here seems to be going well. I see no reason the folks at the Home University would need to be concerned about anything at this point in the trip. I’ve moaned and whined quite a lot about these new classes, but that’s more because they came out of the blue as a surprise to me than anything else; I don’t like surprises.

As far as I know, all the Japanese teachers (as well as Y-San) are happy with both Marc and myself. Neither of us has ever turned down a request or assignment from the company.  Marc has called in sick a few days, but so far I haven’t, so our attendance is overall good. We both hate Japanese Language class, but for different reasons. I think I work at it all harder than Marc, but we’re just different. Marc can impress people with his personality and humor, while I have to impress with brains and hard work. I think the people in charge are happy with both of us, probably for different reasons, but they are happy, and that’s what counts.

We’re both getting to the point where we are talking about going home a lot.  As much fun as it has been here, it is starting to get old. Marc too, is counting the days; he only has six weeks left, while I have eight. Drat!  On the lighter side, on the train yesterday, he mentioned that he wants to go home because he misses American bar food, and he’s getting tired of Japanese bar food.  It was all I could do to keep from laughing. I guess Marc and his bar food isn’t really any worse than me wanting to go home for Taco bell and Wendy’s because I am sick of Japanese McDonalds.

Basically, no one asked for a status report, but there it is anyway. Getting the diploma reminded me that we are sort of still working for the Home University over here.  And also because when I email Dr. M. to pester her about that certificate, she’s bound to ask, “so how is everything going over there?”

Well, you read it here first!

Tomorrow the bitching and whining will resume as usual.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 10:12 pm and is filed under Japan, Teaching, Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.