I’ve just realized that it has been almost exactly a year since when I got internet a year ago. I’d been active and connected to this journal and writing about what was going on, right up until about the point where I once again had ample distraction from it and chose to use that.
This past week, in regards to my apartment, has been a week of revelations and advancements. This week I received a television, a round of shelving, a fridge, and I will receive internet tomorrow.
In other words, this week I’ve received all the things that change this from being merely a place that I’m living in temporarily in the poorest of poor conditions and begun to take on the aspects and expectations that most people would have upon moving to a new apartment.
A fridge … this is far more exciting than it should be. I hadn’t had one in a month. Tonight I bought eggs, milk, orange juice, a small amount of cheese, and pork for making ramen. I was downright giddy. I now actually have the ability to cook and preserve food! Now I just need to pick up some Tupperware so that there’s a possibility to store things, some jam for sandwiches, and some veggies and fruit and I will be so set.
The only annoying thing is that it’s not really a quiet fridge. I can hear it humming and it’s about three, perhaps three and a half feet from my bed. This will be reminiscent of sleeping with the fishtanks in my room in America, I think. It’ll take a bit of getting used to, but after that, the hum will be easily ignored.
One of my coworkers pointed out to me that I’m picking up my fridge just as it gets cold enough to put food outside and let that keep it cold. Ah well.
It’s amazing what you can survive without if you don’t have a choice. I was waiting on a fridge that I planned to rent for less than it would cost to buy one, then a coworker offered me his extra one. Just like that, one week later, I have technology and equipment. Now, if I can only get my hands on a table, a chair or two, a bookshelf, a stable job, and health insurance, I will be set for life.
My school, despite all expectations appears to be set to carry on. I’m not entirely certain how this happened, to tell you the truth. Though, I do have my suspicions.
Here at Nova these past months, team spirit, especially among foreign employees has tanked. Teachers are supposedly showing up to work with ‘Nova sucks’ t-shirts, if they bother to show up at all It is far more common for people to just not show up at all. And school with ten teachers commonly have found themselves with one, or none on some days. It’s because we’ve gotten no pay, and it looks as if many of us may be eligible for unemployment benefits. Scratch that, it sounds as if I am eligible, along with all of my coworkers. We haven’t been paid on time in two months, and if this paycheck actually comes Thursday, and we actually get one, it will be ten days late this month. I don’t believe it will actually come though. I’m not sure I will ever get paid again to work here.
Some of my coworkers don’t think that Nova will last through November. Many of us are planning to stick around until the end of Nova, to collect students for private lessons, and collect unemployment after the company collapses as we search for new jobs. And yet … we’re still coming in. I believe Katsura will go down in history as the school where the teachers held fast until the end. I’m not sure if we will be remembered as extremely noble or extremely foolish. There’s a good chance our reputation will be both though. At least, I’m hoping that we’re seen as something other than just plain foolish.
We’re not doing this because we expect that Nova will pay us. We’re certainly not doing it for the Japanese staff, though we do sympathize with them … well, some of the nicer ones anyways. We’re doing it for the students.
There has been an amazing outpouring of support for us from the students. Day after day they thank us simply for coming in. That our company is on the brink of collapse is all over the news. They know it as well as we do, and they are scrambling to use hundreds of points and to make good on as much company credit as they can manage before Nova goes under once and for all. Despite that, they hold no grudges against us. They know that we had nothing to do with anything that’s been going on. Indeed, they are sympathetic and worried for us. Some of my coworkers have been telling students that they will offer private lessons. Students fret that they want to be able to support and see us all but don’t think they can get up that kind of money.
They’ve also been bringing in food. Doughnuts, pastries, bread, candy … anything and everything that they can manage. I actually got one gift, sweet potatoes and rice, right when the company started having problems from an older student. Two days ago someone else brought in fish sushi, which I passed on as I had no fridge. Today was doughnuts, little pastry cakes, baked bread, and chocolate candies. I was nothing short of awed.
It helps, certainly, that there’s only a handful of teachers and hundreds of students. But still, it is such a sweet gesture, with so little expected in return. And many of these students have been very helpful, informative, and concerned about us. Two days ago one of my students, upon hearing that I can’t read kanji and haven’t been keeping up with the news, took it upon herself to type up an article in Japanese and use her computer to help her translate it then print it out and bring the translation, and the original article to me. The English isn’t perfect, but the effort that she went through for my sake really touched me.
It’s due to this that I feel a certain degree of pride, fool or not, for sticking with this school and these students. There is something extremely precious about these few remaining weeks. I’m having more fun in lessons, learning more from the students. Probably, it doesn’t help that we haven’t had a boss here for several weeks. Ian stuck around for one week, then took off for his new job, and our boss before that quit shortly after his paycheck was two weeks late back in September.
I hope I never find myself in this position again. I still do not know what is likely to happen to me, or if I will be packing up and heading home in January, but I do know that I am very grateful to have gotten to know these students, to have been a part of their lives if just for a little while. There’s a sense and a feeling of going back in to meet old friends at work, and there is a sense of pleasure in seeing these faces over and over again now.
A quick snapshot of who I’m referring to here, to name a few, most of whom I’ve seen this past week (though this is in no way all of the students that I remember or remember well):
Hiroko, who is a wonderful, batty old lady, clothing designer, who continually amuses. She also has the most fascinatingly bright clothing. She is the slightly eccentric artist stereotype that everyone expects. She’s great fun.
Tsubura, (six? Seven?) a child who I’ve been teaching these last few months … she comes in in her school uniform and everyone remarks how adorable she is. Mostly she draws pictures and we chatter on in broken English about her pictures, then I sneak part of a lesson in there somewhere so it looks as if she’s been on task the whole time.
Takumi, who is always so excited to be here (eleven). He likes telling stories about Gatch Bell, anime, and things exploding. He’s also a Gundam Wing fan.
Mari, Takae, and Kazuko, who always come in as a group of three and chatter happily in English and occasionally Japanese and always approach things with a grin.
Aika, who wanted to know how on earth I got so tall when I don’t eat vegetables.
Yuri (sixteen), who dreams of being a flight attendant, and has advanced further than I’d ever dreamed in one year’s time.
Takuji, who I level checked into seven earlier this year and has moved to … five or four … I think it’s four now, which is an incredible jump. We chat about fishing and trade anime recommendations when it’s just the two of us.
Both Nahokos, who I enjoy telling that they have a twin with the same name. I think I tell them both that the other one is younger. They checked into the same level at the same time, then advanced at about the same time to the next level. Finally now one of them has advanced one level further and left the other one behind.
Barbie Keiko, who I haven’t seen in a while but remember fondly. Barbie was our own add on for her. A beautiful young woman with extremely stylish clothes, also very open, chatty and very willing to chat without any of the snobbery I’d have expected out of anyone who dressed that well.
Akio, who I will always remember telling me about his family hiding out in the countryside during WWII.
Sakae who always does so well in voice and takes over the conversation, directing and leading it to see that everyone gets a chance to talk if someone’s being quiet.
Nahoko (different family name) with her adorably short hair and hat. She always looks so cheerful. One of these days I will figure out how to read the directions for that veggie soup she handed out in Voice!
Mikiko, who is so caring, even if she’s a little quieter.
Shouko, Yumi, and all the rest of the beginner class who struggled mightily but took the time to ask about my work and to strain their English way beyond their ability to find out how I was doing.
There are so many … Both Michikos, but especially the shrewd Osaka woman who aced a lesson on bartering.
Kaho and her little sister Hiio, who I will see for the last time this week … Hiio isn’t a student, but she watches when her older sister takes classes and she comes to the door when I open it up to let her sister out and tries to do the flashcard quizzes with her sister. Kaho helps her out, just a bit. Kaho’s extremely smart and fun.
Chinna’s fun too, though I need to keep that pink pen away from her, as she just pouts when she can’t have it. She likes coming up with similar sounding names for me in class and calling me them. Carrots is a popular one, though sometimes I’m Caramel.
The cute boy students who I wisely resisted the urge to hit on, but cursed that they were that attractive but in my classes … both of whom have now quit (fair game, yay!).
Even some of the more challenging ones … I will carry fond memories of Rumi, who is terribly shy and rarely says anything in more than a whisper, but burst into giggles when one of the other teachers did a magic trick for her, then brought her in to show us …
How could I possibly want to give this up? I can’t even name all of the people that I want to name here ….. a year’s experience teaching so many people and finding out so much about them, so many experiences …. I half worry that one of my students will find this and be insulted that I left them out. It’s more that there’s hundreds of them and it’s two am than that I’ve run out of names, I swear! (Students, if you do find this, I will happily add a bit about you if you want.)
I will miss these people so, because I know that I won’t see most of them again. I think that that is really why I am holding on. These people have been the reason that I’ve transformed from being introverted to forcing myself to be the person to initiate conversations and be the outgoing on because someone needed to, if only in classes. They’ve shared with me their lives and so much of who and what they are, and I am so deeply grateful for it.
These are the things that I will miss when all is said and done. Certainly, I could start again as a teacher and gain new students and do the same thing all over with. No matter what happens next I will doubtless do something along those lines. But oh, I wish that this didn’t have to end…. These are the first and they will always be special.
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