Deadlines

Hey there,

So I have a bit of news for you...

I've been on a bit of an emotional roller-coaster lately, trying to make a few decisions.  I had decided with my Japanese study that I would do my best to pass on July 1st, but that I would continue to study with the serious intention of passing when I resat in December.

However, I was then given the opportunity through my program to do a subsidised TEFL course (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).  As much as I like to believe I can do everything, my emotional state lately as I got snowed under at work has proved otherwise (my own fault - I started this English journal thing, but I've been staying late regularly to mark them all.  If there is an obvious improvement in their English by the end of the year, it was worth the pain.  If not... I will not volunteer to mark 320 journals a fortnight next year!).  Anyway, Jeff said he supported me doing TEFL and agreed it could be a very useful thing to take, but that I had to be realistic and accept that I couldn't study for TEFL AND study for a Japanese test, because I was already struggling without TEFL.  I understood what he meant, but it made for a hard decision for me.  Did I walk away from a free grant to get some more (possibly very useful) education, or did I choose not to fulfill this goal I had told everyone about?

I felt terrible not upholding my word, but in the end I realised that a) I really wanted to do the TEFL course and b) it would be potentially useful after JET, maybe getting me a job, whereas my beginner Japanese would never be more than a hobby.  So I decided yes, I would do TEFL.

On Wednesday I got my supervisor to help me as I needed her to email me the documents to fill out.  At which point she reread the forms and realised she had given me the wrong submission date.  Rather than being due in two days time, it had been due two days ago.

I was bereft.  I had spent a week researching, umming and ahhing, hassling all kinds of different people for information to help me make my decision, and it was all for naught.  The only good thing is that it was about 5pm by the time I got this news (even though I 'finish work' at 4:05pm), so at least I could just grab my stuff and leave school as fast as I could.  I made it out of school and through the first set of lights before I started crying.  Then I stopped quickly as I passed a bus stop full of my students.  Then I let myself cry again.  Then I had to stop again because I was passing some of my students biking home.  Damn students, never give you any privacy!

Anyway, at home Jeff told me I could do the course anyway if I wanted, that we could pay for it ourselves, but that really wasn't the point.  The point was I felt I had been facing a big decision (stopping studying Japanese may not sound that big, but I purposefully told lots of people about my plans so I would feel pressured into following through, knowing everyone would be watching for signs of my Japanese progression).  Then, after lots of discussion and questioning and being fairly keyed up about it, I made a decision.  Which turned out to be invalid. So funding the course on my own felt a bit beside the point.  If I was doing it on my own I could do it at a time that was more practical and only when I had ascertained that it would definitely help my job prospects.

A friend asked if I was going to try to fight for the right to take the course.  I told her no, but then I got to thinking.  I had assumed that my supervisor would have asked my Board of Education if it was possible for me to hand it in late, when she first called them to clarify the hand-in date.  But then I thought about it more and realised that she is so hesitant about breaking rules that maybe it never occurred to her to ask if I could do a late hand-in.

So this morning I emailed my ALT rep in the Board of Education, explaining my situation.  I'm a little unclear if it was because of my email or if the BOE had just discussed my case that morning anyway, but we got a call saying if I submitted my application immediately they would accept it.  Yay!  Except that the application was two pages, one of which was a sample activity I had to design, and I needed to be teaching in ten minutes.  Yikes!  I ended up handing the Japaneses teacher my photocopies and teaching materials and sending him into the class without me while I tried to throw my application together.  I got it all done and sent off, but I'll admit I'm nervous.  The JET program is very picky about filling out paperwork correctly and they tend to be disinclined to accept things if they have any mistakes.  As it was, trying to quickly reread what I have written I found things like 'basical' (wtf?) and incomplete sentences where a cut and paste hadn't worked.  It was all done in Excel too, so it was very strange formatting and I could only read one line of a paragraph at the time.  I really hope I don't get my grant application rejected because of any appalling grammar or spelling errors!  Although, as I explained to my supervisor, I figure they can't turn me down for mistakes, because it only means I need the teacher training even more!  Fingers crossed!!

That drama finished, you may be wondering what I have on that I'm so busy.  Well... I have big news for you.  Aside from the regular stuff (work, exercise and a bit of Japanese study), I have taken on the job of co-editor for the Hiroshima online magazine, Wide Island View.  http://www.wideislandview.com/

I don't recommend looking now, because it has been ignored for at least six months, other than a random hacker (don't click 'Home' from the Home page, unless you want information on Cialis).  But Emily (my co-editor) and I have decided to forge ahead on getting things updated and ignore the Cialis intrusion, because god knows how long it will take to fix that issue (it will be fixed.  Just not by us.  It is something that requires expertise well beyond our combined amount).  We are very excited about gathering a team and getting the webpage up to date.  We have had a couple of planning dinners and done plenty of bonding, with a little website planning.  Although we did nowhere near as much work as we should have managed in an evening, I don't feel bad about it because we don't know each other very well and it's good to have a better understanding of the person we are going to rely on a LOT over the next year and a bit.

I'll keep you updated on the webpage.  Our deadline is August, when the new JETs come in, but hopefully we will have some stuff up much earlier than that.  Yay!

Hope you're all doing well, wherever you are and whatever you're up to.

xo