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I’m on vacation now, and having the kind of job I do this year, I don’t have grading or anything to worry about, but my break is a little shorter than it would have been in my public school job.

I’m trying my best to focus on every moment being present with my best friend and away from the things that cause me to feel kind of mopey about my everyday life back in Japan. Plus, when I go back, I’ll only have 10 or 11 weeks left on the job I’m leaving.

In the meantime, I’ll have to secure an apartment for my next job, but even though being a teacher in a school again will be a lot of responsibility, it’s more focused responsibility, so I feel like it will be better for me. Plus, I’m only planning to be there for a year, if my other plans go in order.

It’s hard not to focus on the anxiety of going back to responsibility instead of being where I am, happy. I guess another thing is that I have real hope of my regular life being better in the next 18 months or so, so it’s hard to wait for that long and to imagine it stretching out before me.

However, I am happy that if I just actually manage to ignore my job for the next week or so, nothing bad will happen to me or my students as a result. I just really don’t have quite as much stamina for a teaching job as many do, and it’s the one drawback of my chosen profession, no matter what form it takes.

I’m really happy to be in a part of the world that’s more familiar and which speaks my language, even though I enjoy being in Japan. I came to Japan in order to have a chance at a better living situation than the one I was able to afford in America, despite making a higher salary, but now that I have worked out a game plan to have a life where I can be near my best friend most of the time, I feel it is frustrating and not quite enough. On the other hand, the conversation that led to me actually coming up with this plan and finding out more than I knew before probably wouldn’t have happened if not for the confluence of circumstances and my homesickness and discontent when I first moved. And, I’ve gotten in better shape – losing a little weight but, more importantly, getting my diabetes under much better control. So, it feels like a “meant to be” kind of side quest, but I wish it wouldn’t take so long, but I’m old enough that I don’t want to wish my time away.

Just thinking some thoughts as I try not to waste my time off as I often do, fretting.

For those who were wondering, giving the news to my boss via email turned out to go pretty well.

Saturday evening, I attended a Christmas concert put on by my boss's church, and I saw her after. She acknowledged receiving my email and agreed it was a good move for my overall career. Seems she's not interested in burning bridges via passive aggression. And, like, I guess I didn't expect she'd be awful about it but I feared it was in the realm of possibility?

So yeah, I'm sorta floppy from relief.

Election night in America was Wednesday morning here in Japan. A few weeks ago, not even thinking of the date, I agreed to come with my boss and an elderly student of hers that she sees on Wednesday mornings on an outing to see autumn leaves and the historical Tokugawa shrine/grave thing in Nikko. I honestly didn't realize Nikko's past historical importance. Anyway, when I realized that I would be on this outing while refreshing my phone for election results, it felt like being forced to go fiddle while my country set itself on fire.

When Biden stepped down as the candidate, I allowed myself to hope for a moment.

But one of the reasons I came to Japan, looking back, was dread of this election and its seemingly foregone conclusion.

I saw princessofgeeks's post about the election and read through some of the comments, and I feel like that both her feelings and some of the comments expressed summarize my feelings rather well. The negative and frightened ones. I feel like we're all preaching to the choir with this.

I am heartbroken and for the first 24 hours after learning that it was pretty much done, I couldn't eat. I had eaten a meal with my boss and her student that didn't sit well in my stomach, both because I usually eat my meal of the day after work and because the world was crumbling before me. I came home after a long, long day and went to bed without eating. This morning, I forced myself to eat a piece of toast with some of the fake Zax sauce I made a week ago that's still in my fridge. I managed to eat a small meal at McDonald's tonight after work. I have been mostly avoiding McDonald's as an effort to stand in solidarity with Palestine given the global McDonald's apparatus's duplicitous role in all of it. However, there are very limited options for what's open after I'm finished with working: Gusto, McDonald's, Saizeriya, Sukiya, and Yakiniku King. There might be a few others I haven't tried, but those are the ones I've been to. Oh, and Hamasushi, but I kind of haven't been into sushi this time in Japan. And they started selling Pepsi instead of Coke. Terrible. As you can see, McDonald's is the only kind of home-like food I can get access too. However, the paradox of fast food being more expensive than sit down restaurants holds true again, in that I could've gotten more food for less money or the same money at Gusto when I decided I wanted some chicken nuggets to really roll in my desire to be a kid or at least in my 20s again.

I miss my mother so much right now. I feel like so many people get their moms way up into their own retirement ages. I understand that it's because those women had children younger, in part. My mom had me when she was 36. But my mom also died kind of young, at 66. However, I can't help but feel I'm glad she didn't have to watch this happen again.

Both my parents were staunchly conservative voters when I was little. I identified as a Republican as a kid, because that's what my parents were, and I believed they were right about everything. I knew they disagreed with Democrats for some reason. Reasons unclear in my mind. They offered simple explanations, none of which stuck. I think the big thing was that they didn't want to explain abortion to a child. My parents believed that abortion was killing an innocent human, and that was that. This, of course, was influenced by cultural and religious rhetoric, but I think it was also in no small part because my mom was born with a birth defect, and she knew that in a world where abortion was an acceptable choice and a known option, it was likely that she and people like her would never get the chance to be born. It was also in no small part because my parents were poor people who had to make a financial investment in my mom's fertility for her to have a one and done pregnancy to have me, though she kind of believed she may have had an unknown miscarriage early in her marriage due to a particularly scary period incident.

My dad's favorite TV show ever in the history of anything is The West Wing. And a lot of it is patriotic idealism that I feel like is laughable in our current climate. However, I think that this show has ultimately had a majorly positive impact on both myself and my father. When I was a kind, I went through a phase of wanting to be a lawyer because of the character Ainsley Hayes - a Republican who ends up working in the Democratic White House of the show - and I was so taken with her because she was a southern woman in this context. But later, as I grew older and my dad kept watching reruns of this show as soon as streaming became a thing, I learned that even if I only half-understood the show when I was a kid and we watched it every time there was a new episode on TV, hat I probably learned some of the nascent ideas that would make me a more compassionate and left-leaning person as I grew older. And I think it did for my dad and, to a lesser extent (because she watched it less frequently with my dad), for my mom. So, it may not be perfect by any means. But I sort of wish I lived in their world instead of my own.

(When I say my dad really likes the West Wing, I once named a TV that needed a name for device purposes "West Wing Machine" for him, and he watches it almost every night before sleeping. It's his comfort show. When The West Wing got moved from Netflix to HBO Max, I was pretty broke, and so were my parents, but around Father's Day, I bought a subscription mainly just so he could have his show back.)

Anyway, back on the issue of reality. Despite being relatively conservative people, my parents always tried to be good people. Despite embracing some level of moral homophobia, they welcomed my queer friends into their home, usually without any awkward commentary. My mom never knew and my dad still doesn't know that I'm bi, but despite ignoring all the signs that their daughter had all the weird and queer friends, they were never that kind of homophobic. However, over my adult life, I watched my parents slowly give in on certain subjects. They carried the baggage of their political/religious convictions that tended toward the conservative, but by the time the 2020 election came around, my poor, brave, dying mother spent some of her last months of coherence and relative peace trying to convince her relatives on Facebook that Trump was dangerous and not in any way a representative of or better for Christianity than Biden.

And no one would listen.

My parents can/could sometimes be moved by reason. So many people in America cannot.

My dad also surprised me last night when he expressed a clear stance on exceptions to allow abortion. He's still not there on it being a free right for anyone who decides they need one, but he's so much more open on the issue than he used to be. Clear and obvious support for it in cases of incest and rape where the person decides they don't want to keep the baby, if pregnancy occurs. He said that if I were raped, he would drive me to a doctor himself if I fell pregnant, even if it were restricted or illegal. That floored me, because it's not the kind of thing I grew up hearing. I learned, I made arguments, and between that and other people in his life, he changed his mind. It's not where I'd like it to be, but it's so much different than what I used to hear.

Anyway, that kind of thing... both breaks my heart for my parent(s) who live in this climate where half or more of the people they know are buying and gobbling up the bullshit, and they feel the need to keep inroads to have some positive influence on people who post hateful, cruel things one day and say reasonable things the next and makes me very proud of them. It makes me feel a little hope because my parents so often seemed like the rocks that couldn't me moved on some issues, but in the end, they both came out hard against this man, even when it has cost them relationships and even when they didn't really wholeheartedly support the alternative.

I also understand that America's role in overseas politics was a huge issue this time around. Republicans want us to send less money to Ukraine. Leftists want us to send no money to Israel. I don't even have to explain which side I'm on there, but I also just think about the ripple effects we have without lifting a finger.

I'm tired and rambling now, but I guess I wanted to say that even though I went through and am still going through a lot of terrible feelings of fear, that from the reading I have done most recently, I think it's important not to give up. It's important to keep showing up for people you love.

I have to do a shit-ton of emotional labor to keep going through the motions of my job every day. If I had a job where it was possible to just call in and take the day off, I might have pulled the rug in behind me today and tomorrow. But I can't do that. I don't really have a choice. And some of it is phony and feels phony. But sometimes it feels real that most of our lives are lived in a room with a handful of people. The systems around us are scary and can suck, but even people living under authoritarian regimes often have joy and entertainment and don't die.

I'm very scared of the possible worst outcomes of this, for myself, my loved ones, and the world. But I do believe in God and that even in the midst of terrible things that come to pass as the result of human will that there are sometimes interventions. And, you know, even if the skeptics out there are right, and my faith is nonsense, I think that makes it even more important to live your life for the love you have for others. And that's what makes us different from the Them we are now so rightfully scared of.

Recently, I finished the audibook I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, and I've got to say that it has only become more timely since I finished it a week ago.

Conflict drives so much of what we hear and see and do. It drives our media and our political machines. But I don't think it's necessarily reckless optimism to say that there are more people on Earth than there have ever been before. If we're about to reach a crescendo and then the end, we won't regret having loved people. If we're not about the reach the end, and human and civilization do, in fact, continue to survive, it's loving people genuinely - building communities, helping others, developing empathy and compassion - that's going to make it possible.

So, sometimes, I feel despair and anger. I don't think that's going to go away. And I do feel like I've got to brace for impact, that life could not only not get much better for me but that it could get a whole lot worse. But I keep praying, and I keep hoping that, by loving people and finding joy where I can, I will forestall the worst of things around me. I have not been blessed with a life completely free of struggle, and it is dangerous, evil prosperity gospel stuff to suggest that earthly struggle is a sign God doesn't love us. But I have been blessed (I believe by God, or you can believe by chance or luck or privilege) that every time something bad has happened in my life, I have been generally shielded from the worst possible version of it. I hope that won't come to an end. I weep, because I feel like that sensation makes me entitled and privileged. However, I also believe that I am loved, by God and by a handful of really wonderful people.

So: If we believe God is real and in the world and some part of its function, loving people is a holy duty.

If we believe God is a fanciful notion that people use to spiritually bypass suffering, then we are perhaps even more bound by duty to love each other and love any beauty or joy we can find because if nothing means anything cosmically, all anything means is how we make use of the wonderful quirk of an ability it is to be able to feel compassion and love and to do good and beautiful things, even if it seems there are a hell of a lot of people who lack that capacity.

I am reminded, again, of my favorite poem. I don't have it memorized to recitation standards, but I keep thinking of it in tiny snippets.

https://poetrysociety.org/poems/a-brief-for-the-defense

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My job interview this past Friday went well as far as I know. I believe that they are planning to have me interview directly with the school in October. Another blessing is that this school has one weekday off and has Saturday school instead which means that I will be able to go to this interview in Tokyo without needing an excuse or a day off from my current job.

At the current job, most things are going well. However, my boss still finds a way to use a tone with me that sometimes sends my anxiety spiraling. Plus, I can't even tell if it is really there or not. I mean, she's fluent in a second language, so how am I to know if certain tone usage is meant tobe read the way my nervous system is reading it? I don't know if my gut is to be trusted in this case or not.

In any case, I think I will be much happier in a job where I'm less micro-managed. It's not a lot of micro-managing, but it's enough. I want to be in a job where I am given more reliable, consistent responsibilities, and by extension a little more freedom. Either way, even if the job I'm hoping to go to is just as stressful, I'll still be getting paid a fair bit more and getting at least as much time off if not more.

One thing I wanted to vent about, though, is something that my boss is occasionally guilty of but that I have noticed throughout my professional acquaintanceship with anyone. Especially above a certain age, most people have kids, are married, or both. They may have extended family and grandchildren.

I don't have those things yet. I'm not sure I ever will. But it drives me fucking crazy when people who have children and grandchildren act like single people who don't are both lazy and should be picking up the slack for others in that regard. Like, it isn't my fault if you have worked your way into a lifestyle where only 5 hours of sleep is possible regularly. There are reasons that I don't have an extended family circle, and part of it is that I actually have to sleep a pretty significant amount of time, at least every other night, to function. We're talking 9 or more hours, at least every other night. And that isn't me being lazy. That's me trying to be responsible so I'll show up on time to work and put in good work. Sometimes, that means I can only have work.

I've been trying my best to do better about that. But it absolutely sets me off when I sometimes get this inkling of an attitude from my boss or anyone else that I'm just lazy because I don't torture myself the way she does to be obligated to family.

Sometimes I wish I had a partner and/or kids, but I don't even have the energy to manage pets on my own.

For some reason, even when I haven't been on here in ages, I remember to check in at the first of the year. Apparently, for 2023, it was the one and only time, and I did absolutely nothing with that fandom challenge thing, unsurprisingly.

2023 has been a year of feeling... quiet online in a way that I haven't before.

That doesn't mean I haven't been online at all. I don't really have anything that would substitute for "being online," but a lot of my internet use has shifted to my phone.

I don't actually have any apps I use to track that sort of thing, and if my phone has any sort of built-in "well-being" or app usage monitor, it would be skewed all to hell after this week.

I contracted COVID for the third time, symptoms starting to manifest late Thursday afternoon. This is unsurprising as I had a student who was out with it through the school week until Friday. It kind of sucks due to the chances of complications, for myself or others, but on the other hand, if I'm going to get it, it's one of the least-inconvenient times to be laid low.

2023-2024 marked the first school year when I was actually invited back to my teaching position, which means that my work life has actually been a repeat of the previous year in terms of curriculum, which I've got to say did do a lot to bolster professional confidence. But of course, for better or worse, the moment I stop looking for change is when one offers itself.

Sometime, I think in November, I got a random email from a woman offering me a job in Japan. The position was listed for availability as soon as February, but there was no way I could've made that work, and I don't think immigration would have been able to swing it either, given what's going on right now. In any case, it means that I am finishing this school year the Friday before Spring Break unless the bottom falls out on the Japan thing.

It's very surreal, and I'm still dreading telling my current crop of students in a couple of weeks. Nevertheless, going back to Japan has been like this little moon orbiting my head ever since I came back, though I'm glad I did choose to stay home in 2020, even before everyone knew how bad things would get. My life since then feels like it's been slogging through a lot of negative milestones, some of which I've talked about here, but others that were just chores that had to be done.

These have not been a terrible four years, but I still feel like it has cemented that the lifestyle available to me in my home state as a teacher is not one that is conducive to me feeling like a whole person. It's hard to have any energy or time outside my job, even when I love my job and am doing my best to only work approximately my contract hours. I come home, and no matter how early I leave, I feel like I only sleep until it is time to get up and go to work again.

Of course, some of that may have been fatigue that was building up to my getting sick recently, but it's been a pattern that has been deepening for a couple of years.

Back in the 2021-2022 school year, when I worked near Nashville as a middle school teacher, I would come home and somehow find the time to spend a few hours almost every night playing Genshin Impact. It was good for me, and my best friend and I would co-op together and she would help me through a lot of exploration. However, once I got past some of the early game content, and we got out of that habit, my Genshin playing has slowed down to a couple of times a month. Now, I have never been one to want to really dig in and play a video game every single day forever. However, I know that I was a more healthy and sane person when I was doing it consistently.

One of my resistances to playing games as a primary hobby is that I would like to be creating. When I'm in a fandom, historically, I want to write about it. I want to talk about it and create about it. Gameplay is about accomplishing a goal within the game itself, not being effusive about it, and so because of that, I get itchy when my primary fandom is a game. However, Genshin wasn't that restrictive. It isn't a hard game most of the time, even for me, for the basic content. However, there is this weird perpetual motion or law of thermodynamics thing where it seems like I was actually writing more on AO3 or whatever other platform when I was playing the game more.

Which is weird, because I felt like I was drowning at work more often and obviously I wasn't being quite as successful at that job as I have become now.

In this current job, I actually feel respected and like I'm viewed as a competent educator, not someone they're trying to fish out with a life preserver all the time. Which makes leaving it seem like a tricky proposition. However, I have lived here going on two years, and my life is either staying the same or getting smaller.

The issue is that my job is the best part of my life here. And that's not something to complain about, exactly, except that it is?

My landlady (the woman I rent a bedroom and a bathroom from) here is a sweet, kind, fair woman for what she's doing. However, in my past rent-a-room situations, the people I was renting from were peers who just so happened to be homeowners. This is a much different dynamic with a married couple, their baby, and a mother-in-law who doesn't speak English.

I don't really have full kitchen access here, to the point that I have basically accepted having none 99% of the time, no matter what it says on the tin. They're just such kitchen-centric people and it's just so uneven that I don't even try anymore. So that's one thing I'm looking forward to leaving.

Anyway, the weird thing that brought me to a place to blog that I wanted to note, apart from that niggling beginning of year reminder that's programmed into my brain, is that after about three days of drifting in and out of consciousness due to a combination of the COVID fatigue itself and the Nyquil I have been taking to mitigate my symptoms, I feel more... brain-alive than I have in months?

Hopefully that's a good sign that I don't have a brain fog causing strain of this plague, but it's just... I wonder what's going on with it? Like, it's not actually possible that I needed 72 hours of almost uninterrupted delirium to be a rested human being. I wake up and feel rested. I tackle my days. And the isolation of these past four days has been kind of wearisome except for the part where I was loopy enough not to care.

I read something earlier today on some social media feed where some scold was saying that self-care was some excuse to be lazy and someone was answering that, no, at worse it was a maladaptive coping mechanism for people with chronic illnesses.

Technically, I do have several chronic illnesses.

I am on... so many prescriptions (not narcotics). I wish I weren't. I hate it. But my doctor says I need them.

I am hoping that moving and walking and eating and BEING differently will help cut back on some of them...