Ruminations...

So yesterday as I was teaching my "culture" class I decided to share my eureka! moments with them...in the past few weeks it has slowly dawned on me that I am suffering from a case of reverse culture shock.

I have been thinking how much easier life was in Japan--
I knew what was expected of me. I knew what my immediate future held. I had stability and with that some sort of sanity. I had grown comfortable and secure in my environment there. Now I am definitely putting a rose-colored spin on it, cuz it wasn't all peaches and cream there was plenty of crap too. But after the first year I had my place figured out. I was a gaijin. I was a teacher...aka: a performer paid to jump through hoops. I balked many times at the requests made by the managers but I usually did what was asked.

But now I am here. Dealing with America and American-isms again. I had a rough time these last two Wednesdays... I had to do my field experience for getting my k-12 license. Well, the teacher I worked with was...mmmm...how do I put this nicely? Overbearing? Domineering? Controlling? Long story short, I stepped on her toes the very first day of working with her. I corrected her spelling error to a student (individually of course). Wrong thing to do. I just did not want to let that little girl leave her ESL classroom thinking the correct spelling of "SUPPLIES" is "SUPLLIES". Then this past week the teacher's spelling error was the word "argument" she spelled it "arguEment" so now there are 5 teens who believe that is how to spell argument. After seeing that, I have become much more concerned with the state of affairs in public education.

So do I want to continue pursuing this career path? Or do I want to teach at Community College or at University?

This could be contingent upon what happens with my career as a Graduate TA in the Intensive English Center (IEC)...

I put my foot in my mouth with my Professor (supervisor in the IEC)...we have these stupid assignments which are just busy work and the class is suppose to be a practicum to help teachers teach---or so I thought. Well, the busy work consists of journal writing, self-evaluations, peer-evaluations, reading reviews of 4 chapters and attending a class/staff meeting every week. Now I understand the staff meeting and discussion of students in said meetings...what I don't understand is how reading about teaching is going to help me with my teaching skills when we don't discuss it or utilize it in any apparent manner. Well, I was feeling pissy so I wrote my true feelings in one of my journal entries which my Prof commented strongly upon. Now I am unsure if I am on her shit-list or not.

So is it culture shock in reverse? or is it just a character flaw on my part? hmmmmm...

I had a different Prof tell me this week that I "intimidate" people by making them feel inferior and that I am too "serious" alot of the time. GREAT! How am I suppose to go about changing that???

The struggle to find a happy balance of what is expected versus how I am is what I am dealing with now. I am looking forward to my month-long vacation between terms...

And I think I may be onto something which I can investigate further for my thesis...