Donuts Are a Girl's Best Friend

Next week Monday, a representative from the Hyogo Prefectural Board of Education (i.e., my employer) will attend one of my classes. As requested, I submitted my lesson plans and handouts the previous month, and this week, I conducted practice runs of the lesson with other first-year classes. As expected, I quickly discovered weaknesses in my plans and immediately consulted with my co-teachers on what revisions I could make.

Halfway through the process, however, Mr. Bamboo Central--serving as an English-speaking representative of the vice principal--stopped me, asking whether I had drawn the handout's visuals myself or merely copied them. In fact, I had (literally) cut and pasted the illustrations used by my predecessor in a similar lesson. No good, Mr. Bamboo said. I needed to draw my own.

With a full schedule of five classes (out of six periods), I skipped lunch--despite not having had breakfast--and worked through the day. In the afternoon, when a student asked whether I would be participating in ikebana lessons, I immediately replied, no, that I was busy, which in turn prompted her to shriek, "How can Kristine be busy? She's not a real teacher!"

A short time later, I asked the instructor whether I could skip lessons for the day, though I still offered to pay for my floral materials. She convinced me to stay, arguing that I could leave once I had completed my piece. The school nurse, who advises the club, laughed along with the student, trivializing my work and agreeing that I couldn't possibly be busy. I mentioned the BOE visit, which even she had heard of, but she still refused to believe that I have any responsibilities at the school besides being a stupid foreigner. I endured another session of "Do you understand what '赤' (red, a simple word) means?" before I hurried out and returned to my revisions.

Back at my desk, I continued to work, watching as the sky outside darkened. At 6:30 pm, I submitted my final revision to Mr. Bamboo Central, apologizing humbly and profusely that I hadn't submitted the papers sooner. He then tossed the papers nonchalantly onto his desk and exhaled, "Okay."

I fought back tears as I stuffed my pens and papers into my bag and returned home, though not without nearly being hit by a car. I blame the near-death on poor driving, not misty eyes. I'm now home, sick with anger and hunger as I type this post, and I now realize that I have nothing to console my heart and stomach but eggs, stale bread, and donuts.

My school isn't necessarily the antagonist in my self-contained career drama. I understand that employing a foreigner can a burden. What saddens me is that in coming to Japan, I took comfort in relieving my parents (somewhat) of the burden of caring for me, yet I'm now discovering that I've only come to be a burden to another set of people. It may not always seem so, but I do care about the happiness of others, and learning that I only cause the opposite is horrible.

As a complement to the Why-Am-I-Here? thread, I today faced the dilemma of receiving contradictory complaints about my latest lesson plans. One teacher scolded that the plan is too easy, that I shouldn't treat the students like idiots. Yet another instructor took a good five minutes of my morning to illustrate to me why my plan is too difficult. Does my work benefit anyone here? The answer to that question saddens me, but I continue trying to believe the opposite.

And might I add that in reality, when the blues hit, I turn away from food, not toward it. If work continues to fall this way, I'll be a skinny girl in no time.