The Schedule

This semester I am decidedly more busy than last semester. It has nothing to do with being used to teaching yet or not (I am). What's making things more busy is I have agreed to teach evening classes. From Monday to Thursday, I teach either a middle school or a high school conversation class at 7:10pm. This means I am at school for pretty much 12 hours a day, four of the five work days a week. Hence, busy.

I am getting paid overtime for these classes, which I appreciate. The other thing I appreciate is how being at school for longer hours makes me feel like I'm more of a real member of staff and not just the foreigner that arrives after everyone later and leaves before everyone else. Now I'm just like them, overworked and tired all the time.

Being at school late also gives me more chances to talk to the students, both in my evening classes and outside. The students are here all the time. Many live in the dorms and so study in class until all hours of the night. The more I'm here, the more comfortable we are around each other, and the more we talk. It's fun getting to know them; they're hilarious.

What I don't like about this schedule, though, which should come as no surprise, is how tired I am all the time. Because of bus schedules I often don't get home until 9pm. Sometimes I walk home for the exercise, as I don't have time for the gym during the week now, and end up home at the same time, but it's hard to walk for 45 minutes after being at work for 12 hours.

After a month of this schedule I'm finally getting used to it, mentally if not yet physically. I'm very overdue for a trip to the gym this weekend. My creative side has been atrophying as well. Hopefully I can do some writing or maybe even work on some music this weekend—anything other than lesson plan. I am very much looking forward to midterms next week. Finally, a break from lesson planning.

The Decade In Me

All of the usual media outlets are doing their decade in review pieces these days so I thought I'd do one too, although one of a more personal nature. Instead of talking about technology or music or movies, I'm going to talk about me. Hey, it's my blog.

Ten years ago I was facing the new millennium as an editor at IGN. I had helped launch the site a few years before, had maneuvered myself into lifestyles content (music, movies, gear) and was making more money than ever before (or since). It was the high-flying days of the internet boom and we were all told (repeatedly) that we were going to be rich. Like the Y2K bug, it was all hype, and soon, with the market crashing, things started to fall apart for the internet.

As for myself, I realized that I had sold my soul for the promise of riches. I was moved away from music and onto IGN For Men, a Maxim-like site where I wrote about the "Babe of the Day" in the most salacious prose imaginable. I was routinely called a sexist and a pig, and although it stung I rationalized it as being a "persona," not really me. But real or not, it was eating away at my insides, and after the crash I had a sort of revelation about what I had done. So I took off for Los Angeles.

A change of scenery would do me good, I thought, and for 6 months it did. I was still working for IGN, albeit from home in L.A., and I was off the babes and onto music technology. A significant improvement. It was not to last, though, and I soon joined the growing ranks of the unemployed. I went on unemployment, cashed out my 401k, and drank beer with my other unemployed friends.

With lots of free time I decided to devote myself to making music and soon was releasing breaks records as Kemek the Dope Computer. I got DJ gigs, did some traveling, did some remixes, but it wasn't enough to pay the bills so I went back to work, this time as a copy-editor (and later managing editor) on a pair of automotive magazines in Anaheim.

Looking over this now, I can see how I got more and more off-track from what I wanted. I dropped out of college at 23, my rave lifestyle having taken precedence over scholastic pursuits. Because of an innate ability to write (and with the help of a friend) I ended up at IGN. But the days of finding a job with no college degree were disappearing. With so many people looking for a job, getting through that HR filter was harder and harder without a diploma. So I took a job writing about something I had no interest in (cars) in North Orange County, an average 2-hour crawl of a commute away from my home in Hollywood.

By spring 2004 I had had enough. I quit, sold my car, and went to Japan. At age 32 I was finally being spontaneous. It was a tremendous gamble, as any hope of a visa sponsorship hinged on finding a job at an English-language publication willing to overlook my lack of a college degree. Teaching English, the usual route for Japan transplants, was out of reach for those without a diploma. With no degree, and no real editorial jobs available, I had no choice but to go back home to the Bay Area, my tail between my legs, and start over.

But the seeds were planted. I fell in love with Japan and decided that no matter what, I was going to get back there to live, work, and do whatever else it is people do. And so, in the summer of 2005, I started back to school to get a B.A. in Japanese, first at a local community college and then, in January 2007, at San Francisco State University. I also spent 2008 in Japan as an exchange student. And now, knocking on the door of a new decade, with almost a full 37 years behind me, I am finally a college graduate.

The next step is to go back to Japan. I've already applied to the JET Program, to teach English in rural Japan. If that doesn't pan out, however, there are all kinds of other English teaching jobs. Now that I finally have that degree, nothing is going to stop me from living in the place that I love. And, this time 10 years from now, I hopefully can look back on a decade of living in Japan and tell you all about it.