In at the deep end

The last few days have been a blur. Moving into the new flat and all the trials and tribulations that come along with it – like discovering it’s actually only a little bit bigger than my old bedroom back home. Visions of friends coming out to see me faded quickly into the realisation they’d have to be really good friends, because we’d be sleeping in the same space. There's only a few people on that list. In the evening, struggling to get online and heart sinking more and more with every minute, for really the first time I began to feel that I’d made a big mistake in coming to Japan. Not that I was about to turn around and go, but the ‘what the hell am I doing here?’ questions definitely seemed to have fewer answers. I managed to get online in the end and make a call back to the UK, which made me feel less disconnected from everything as I had. I’m still a long long way from home and the people I love and I think Sunday night was the first time it really felt like a long way.

Monday morning saw me up at 6 – nervous about my first day teaching I think. The school am at is very small, two classrooms, a small room to one side with tea and coffee stuff (and the staff toilet) and a small reception area. The first two lessons go quite well, gear-changing from dealing with three 60 year old women to four 7 year old girls. The other teacher who’s there that day, MB, tells me that the previous teacher was loved by everyone and a tough act to follow – nothing like being told something like that to relax you! The later classes don’t go so well – warmer and get-to-know-you activities fall a little flat and I struggle with grading language and instructions. All things to work on, but coming back to the flat again makes me feel that I’m really in far over my head here.

Tuesday – my day off – comes and goes, mainly taken up with phone calls to the UK and lesson-planning. The phone calls make me feel both homesick and useless, as they are generally about people who are struggling with things back home and I feel that I can’t help very much. It’s difficult to know what to say sometimes down a Skype line that’s not always the clearest or most connected of things. The day ticks by slowly and I find myself wondering about the next day, week, months. Worry has start to set in about people back home and how things will work out. I’m planning my trip home at Christmas in my head and the things that I’ll be taking back, instead of worrying about the things I need here. The lesson planning itself is difficult without the texts and I resolve to try get into one of the schools earlier and try to get ahead of what’s coming up, but in many cases it feels that what needs to be prepared will have to be done on the day.

I take a moment to go stand on the walkway outside my apartment, just to look around at the place – having been in the flat all day, I’ve almost forgotten I’m in Japan. I look up beyond the chaotic jumble of buildings and the power lines that criss-cross the view, to where the mountains loom up in the distance, dark organic mounds against the sky. It’s a good view to have. Reminding myself to look at it every day I head back into the flat to check the weather, which is forecast as rain for the next three days.

So much for checking out the view. Japan is the first country I’ve been in where I heard the phrase ‘umbrella culture’ but it’s very true. Everyone has umbrellas, a myriad of different styles and shapes, a startling dedication to an accessory that in the UK I would almost have thought meant you were trying just a bit too hard – one more piece of faff that you could really do without. After my first soaking in the training last week I resolved to drop that idea, and have now immersed myself into the umbrella culture to the point where I have two. A larger one that I use when I know it’s raining outside, and a smaller one that I have in my bag on a just-in case basis.

Hardly the attitude of a hardy Brit, but it’s a choice between showing up to work like a drowned rat or carrying a brolly. Brolly every time, I have to say.