So I'm a bit riled up at the moment. It's not a good day today. Got woken at 5am by a thunderstorm, ran out the door without either my sweat towel or my drink bottle, and hit INSANE traffic on the way to school. The journey that usually takes me seven minutes took me twenty-five!!
Which meant I arrived five minutes late. And, as this is Japan, that meant I was told I needed to take an hour's nenkyu (leave), because I wasn't in the door at 8:20am.
As you can imagine, I'm pretty unhappy about that. As I explained to Kyoto-sensei (vice principal), if I was local, with kids to take to the doctor etc, then sure taking a couple of hours leave here and there is convenient. But I'm not, I'm a foreigner, and I take my leave by the day, so I can explore Japan. (Note: half of this experience is about us bringing foreign culture to Japan, but the other half is about us going home to tell the world about Japan). And coming back from Tokyo to do an hour's work in the morning sure wouldn't be convenient! As it is Jeff has more leave than me, so if I lose a day of holiday for the want of five minutes, it's a serious inconvenience!
As I am in Japan, I should behave like a Japanese and just lose an hour of leave. But, you may have noticed, I'm not Japanese, so I'm PISSED. Board of Education rules state that if you drive, it doesn't matter what happens, you are responsible for the time you arrive (I've heard this includes if you get stuck behind an accident for an extended period). But I think that's bull and I cannot control the fact the drive took me over three times as long today!
So... I'm digging my heels in. When I first started I was told that I start late on the Fridays when I have English club (and therefore work late), but they later told me that was a mistake and that I needed to start on time. Which I was, understandably, annoyed about (losing my Friday sleep-in!). But I finally gritted my teeth and just came to school at the regular time.
But now they are telling me I need to take this hour's nenkyu, I decided to use it as a bargaining chip. I told Kyoto-sensei "on Fridays we don't follow the rules, I have to start earlier than my contract every Friday. But today we do have to follow the rules." I was even mature enough to say "It's not fair". Oops, lol. But I felt I needed to say something extra because the Japanese have this way of giving excuses instead of reasons, so straight logic doesn't work. You are supposed to focus less on what is said and more on the underlying meaning (we want you to do X, Y, Z). If you are a good 'problem solver' and address the issues they give you, no-one will thank you for it!
Sometimes this is good, because if I'm bull-headed enough I can plow on through and get my way. But often it sucks because I give in for reasons I think are lame and could be easily addressed (oh, you arrived at school five minutes late? Just work five minutes late! Oh - what's that - you work a minimum of 25 minutes late EVERY DAY? Well no worries then!).
So now I've been a stroppy bitch and created a big fuss about it, embarrassing no. 2 and 3 (vice principal and whoever-the-hell the other bloke is. The two principal-wannabes), and putting my poor supervisor into a really awkward situation! One part of me feels horrible for doing this and I just want to be nice and do whatever is easiest. And then I think about wanting to leave for a holiday, but my having to come in and sit at my desk for an hour before we can get on the road (plus travel to and from school, the necessity of wearing work clothes etc). And I realise this is worth fighting for. Serves them right for inviting a foreigner into their school.
I also feel a little better about it because I really feel I pull my weight. I often work late doing student journals and I happily give up my time to help the English group. I am sure that the work I do and the effort I put in would be very appreciated in NZ. But here it's more just about putting in the hours. Preferably long hours, but more importantly the RIGHT hours. As in, working three hours late does not make up for arriving two minutes late (as another ALT recently found out when her train was running late. She got in two minutes late and had to take an hour of nenkyu despite the fact she was working late helping students that night. So I'm not the only one to get stuck in this situation!!). However, you definitely feel guilty leaving on time. No-one else does. Although I was given the important advice at training 'don't try to outstay the Japanese teachers. You'll never beat them.'
The downside of this is that I feel guilty every time I leave work. The upside is that if I sit at my desk after work, whether I'm writing emails, studying Japanese, or playing around on facebook, I get 'bonus points' for still being at work after my hours! Yup, only time in my life I will be judged positively for facebooking!
Currently I'm still waiting on hearing a decision. Kyoto-sensei asked for time to think about it. Probably means he will phone the Board of Education, who will say no and I will get another no. But at least I tried.
Ok, to end this all on a more positive note, on Sunday Jeff and I (and many other ALT friends) sat a Japanese exam. We did level N5, which is the easiest level. Although I don't expect to have passed, I do expect to have passed the first section (kanji - that is, the Japanese characters based on Chinese, with each picture representing a different word) and I felt really good about the last section (listening). The middle was Reading and Grammar and was, without a doubt, the hardest (mainly you could tell that because it was twice as long as the other sections!). I only know about half the vocabulary you can be tested on in that exam, so I was rather adrift in the Reading and Grammar section, but it wasn't a total loss. The time limit is very tight and involves reading fast (all in Japanese, of course). I impressed myself by just managing to read all the hiragana and katakana fast enough to answer all the questions - even if half of them were guesses because I had no clue what was the correct answer.
My goal was to pass the kanji section, so to come away feeling I had passed kanji AND listening was a good feeling. On Monday it hit me - against all the odds, I had learnt enough Japanese to sit a Japanese exam. I find languages very difficult and I struggle to motivate myself to study, so to have learnt enough to enter an exam (even if I haven't passed it) was an achievement in itself. It doesn't sound that amazing over here, where everyone speaks at least a little (even if it's just knowing how to order beer!), but it buzzes me out when I think about where I was a couple of years ago. Actually, today two years ago I was probably sitting on my bed in tears, freaking out about moving to Japan when I spoke no Japanese! Although I don't think my fear was unfounded (moving to a rural community when I had no Japanese, no job and no heat-tolerance was not pleasant!), it's nice to see I survived!
Yay! To end this all on a really positive note, I have just received a phone call letting me off from the nenkyu thing! I'm sure this is my one free ticket, so now I will have to be super punctual and make sure next time there is lots of rain to leave 20 minutes earlier than usual!
It's not the first time I've been late to school for weather reasons, but the other time is was because of snow and I beat about half the teachers to school, so the powers-that-be couldn't even be bothered dealing with all that paperwork! The problem is I live on the ground floor of an apartment that has a solid deck railing and tall buildings on the other side of the carpark - it feels like living in a rabbit warren. So I get a very limited view of the weather! I will have to make a habit of stepping outside and taking a look before I get in the shower, so I don't end up in this situation again!
Hope you all have a good day and don't get to work five minutes late!!!
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