Moving On~

[Frap]

So, it's creeping up to "Recontracting" Time!

Whether you're a JET or not...

Who has been given their papers for next year?
Who is planning on doing another year and why?
Who is planning on saying no and why?
What are your plans if so? Stay in Japan or go back home?
Anybody not on JET looking for a new job out there?

Let's talk about the future!

[OatsCurrySummer]

Got my papers, going to recontract but only because the money's good, life is cheap and I'd feel like a little bitch for leaving after a year and a half. Had I not been a six-month late upgrade, I'd have no problem calling it a day after two years and returning home to do my Masters.
There's still a lot more to do and experience here, but it's getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that this isn't bringing me any closer to my future career goals. So, I'll stay until 2018.
This is definitely the homesickness talking though.

[acpc2203]

I'll see what I can get out of the BoE since they know my placement is bad.

[Frap]

Got my papers, going to recontract but only because the money's good, life is cheap and I'd feel like a little bitch for leaving after a year and a half. Had I not been a six-month late upgrade, I'd have no problem calling it a day after two years and returning home to do my Masters.
There's still a lot more to do and experience here, but it's getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that this isn't bringing me any closer to my future career goals. So, I'll stay until 2018.
This is definitely the homesickness talking though.

What're you hoping to do a Masters in? What are your future career goals? No plan to be a Nihon Lifer?

I'll see what I can get out of the BoE since they know my placement is bad.

What do you mean?

[mothy]

I'll still be here, cursing younger mothy for not developing skills of any use.

[Ini]

what else am I going to do? I'll be here until the cancer slowly consumes me.

[Gizmotech]

Lifers till death! (Where else am I allowed to be such a raging alcoholic and treated with respect for doing it)

[acpc2203]

What do you mean?

Better coffee and snacks at my base school.

[Frap]

Better coffee and snacks at my base school.

aiming high as always, i see

[acpc2203]

eh pretty sure that is the most i can get

[acpc2203]

Also a better chair.

[OatsCurrySummer]

What're you hoping to do a Masters in? What are your future career goals? No plan to be a Nihon Lifer?

Doing my Masters in Information Sciences because I don't have the time or money to follow through with History until the PhD level. Still haven't decided whether I'm going into Library or Museum stream. With the digitization of texts and the need to preserve them physically, both have a lot of options. Gonna be the most boring two years of my life, learning to use cataloging programs and transcribing texts into digital formats, but once I'm done it'll be a job that constantly brings me into contact with strange objects and their histories.
Realized that I don't have what it takes to be a lifer. I'm an outsider and I can accept that.

[mothy]

I think being able to accept being an outsider is exactly what it takes to be a lifer.

[OatsCurrySummer]

I think being able to accept being an outsider is exactly what it takes to be a lifer.

Now I just need babby

[vaterross]

If last year serves as any guide, the BOE should be handing out recontracting papers any day now with an internal deadline well before the JET-wide one. Get the first years in the honeymoon period!

At the this point I'm about 60% sure I want to stay. I think I can eke out another year of feeling fairly satisfied with the job, it'll be my 4th contract of EFL work. The local area has grown on me, I've broadened my social circles and just feel more comfortable here than last year. I haven't given up on Japanese yet and I'd like to see that keep improving. Despite me listing all the positives first, one of the biggest reasons for staying is that I don't have a concrete plan for home yet. I've seen what happens to people who go back without a plan and it's not something I want to go through. If I had family or an SO here, my life would be pretty set (for a couple years at least). But quite soon I need to face the music and transition to whatever's next, teaching certification back home perhaps.

[Ini]

if you have a place in some other country that you call "home" then you probably aren't cut out to be a lifer.

[Frap]

if you have a place in some other country that you call "home" then you probably aren't cut out to be a lifer.

ini-sama if u dont mind me asking, what kind of work do u do atm?

when you first came to japan, was it with jet?

[Ini]

My first job in Japan was with JET but I had passed through a few times before on my magical mystery world tour. At the moment I split my time between researching if video conferencing is the future of ALT-ing and building lego mindstorms with a bunch of kids with aspergers

[acpc2203]

building lego mindstorms with a bunch of kids with aspergers

how do i get this job?

[Lianwen]

I screwed up and I didn't do a proper hiatus for my masters program so I pretty much have another year left here before I really need to go back to America to complete it. I'm hoping that I can go back with my boyfriend and maybe things will get more serious from then. Right now my job is sort of meh, but it pays the bills. Honestly I would really like to go back to ALT work so I just sit around on my butt and finish the easier part of my masters with all the free time.