Sure, I’ll move to Japan.

So, I’m in Milwaukee visiting my oldest friend Holly, who I’ve known and loved since I was four years old. I haven’t seen her since the spring when all of the do-I-keep-the-baby-or-not business was happening and it’s good to be here under, you know, happy circumstances instead.

So we were getting ready to leave the house for some Christmas shopping when my phone started ringing. My phone doesn’t ring a lot, especially when Holly’s around because she’s one of the very few people who actually call me. The number, I didn’t recognize. I answered.

“Hello, this is Jessyka (yes that’s how she spells it) from the JET Program and I was just wondering…”

Jaw drops. Pacing ensues. Holly’s questioning eyes are probing. I write on a paper, “JET PROGRAM” and she physically sits me down in a chair and hands me a full blank piece of paper and a pen.

Last summer, they told me I was an alternate. I was like, sweet, maybe I’ll go, maybe I won’t. They told me they may put in a call to me anytime from then until December. September rolled around and I figured I wouldn’t be hearing from them. October rolled around and they actually emailed saying, “Yeah, you really ought not expect to hear from us.”

Then today, they call and ask me to come to Japan and teach in the Yamagata-Ken prefecture, starting at the end of January.

It’s a very rural place, which Jessyka assumes is the reason the current ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) is quitting. And I specified on my application that I’d rather work in a rural area. And I said I’d had extensive conversations with a former JET, so I knew what I would be getting into. So they thought I’d be a pretty good match to take over the position, despite the fact that (and they know this) I know, you know, NO Japanese, whatsoever.

The job description is thus:

Spend 4 days a week teaching 5th and 6th graders English. This will be the first time they’ve been exposed to the language as this is the first year it’s been mandatory that they start teaching English before 7th grade. Therefore I’ll be coming up with the curriculum on my own rather than “Team Teaching” which is what they said I would ALWAYS be doing when I applied/went through the interview process. “Team Teaching” refers to assisting a Japanese English teacher who actually does speak English. I’d be in the classroom, teaching English, with a Japanese teacher who also doesn’t speak any English. And preparing the entire curriculum myself. W. T. F. Then, one day a week I’d spend at a Junior High level, actually Team Teaching with a Japanese English Teacher as was specified in the literature/interview/etcetera.

OK. So. That’s the deal, more or less.

I was really, really fucking excited about going to the Mount Madonna Center and doing a yoga retreat and then going to Alaska and cooking for fisherman. Like, I couldn’t really imagine a better year for myself. But now they’ve thrown this out there for me. How can I possibly refuse this? Arguably, it could be fairly easy for me to land another position work/studying for yoga in the US. The Alaska/fisherman thing will always be there for me to capitalize on, unless my brother breaks up with his girlfriend which I really don’t see happening, and even if they do I think she and I’s relationship is approaching a point where it’s solid enough that she’d still hook me up with the people I need to talk to.

So! I’m moving to Japan! At the end of January! I don’t know how to say anything in Japanese except for: Hello (Konnichi WA!), Selfish (Wagamama!) and ASSHAIR (Mange!). And I’m going to teach English to little Japanese children! In a very, very rural area where I’m going to be the only foreigner and I can expect to be considered (this is in the JET coordinator’s own words) the “town monkey”.

Wow. My mind is blown. My life is being completely upended. I am in shock. I am reeling. I just cannot fucking believe that this is happening to me now, in December, the last month that it’s possible to happen. It almost seems like par for the course. This will be the second, maybe third, fourth, or fifth time, depending on how you look at it, that my life has been completely and irrevocably changed forever by the stroke of a few minutes. Somehow I do not think that this is normal. I almost want to cry. There’s just not a lot of thought going through my head right now but my body is buzzing with a jumbled mess of emotions. HOW CAN THEY DO THIS TO ME?! And yet, also, how fucking lucky am I?!?!?! I get to go to Japan! They are paying for my ticket! They are paying me! I haven’t had an income in a long ass time and now I’m going to have a really generous amount of money paid to me to… um. Be a monkey. Try my hardest to communicate with a completely foreign culture. Eat really strange things. Go out and let the other teachers get me completely wasted. Um, lots of other things I am sure.

What the hell!?!

Clea