Burnt Out

Someone recently told me that they had to explain the meaning of “burnt out” to their students.  There is a similar Japanese saying that means “only the ashes left.”  Ever since they told me that, I’ve thought about being burnt out more and more, and I think I’m burnt out here in Japan. 

Not so long ago I was second guessing my decision to leave, but now I couldn’t imagine staying for a third year.  While I still enjoy my life here, with my days being numbered things are starting to irritate me.  Things that I used to brush off my shoulders easily feel like they are continuously crushing me down.  After a class that didn’t go according to plan, I take it to heart.  When a typical jerky JHS boy laughs at me, I feel like a failure at life and want to retreat in a dark hole.  When Sunday night rolls around, I dread going to school the following morning and start planning things to do for the next weekend.  (Some days it seriously feels like I’m living for the weekends!)  After a completely silent lunch in which not ONE kid uttered ONE word, I wonder what my purpose is here.  When a co-worker tries to tell me something in Japanese and I have NO idea what he/she is talking about, I think just two more months of this.  In fact, I’ve already counted and know that there are only eight more weeks of school.  I’ve felt this way for the past couple of weeks and not really sure if it’s a normal reaction to leaving or if I really am just burnt out with Japan.  I don’t want to leave with the mentality of “I’m so glad this is over”…………

In other happier news, I went to my recently remodeled nursery school yesterday.  The new building has been under construction since November, and when I pulled up into the parking lot, the construction workers were tearing down the old building….the building I was JUST in last week!  It actually came as a big shock to me because last week when I was there, there were no hints of packing.  No books in boxes, bare walls, or anything to make me think the end was coming.  The new building is GORGEOUS.  It’s light, airy, and everything smells NEW.  Since it was a new place, I’m not sure who was ADD’ing more, my kids or me.  I kept looking around and seeing new mats, boards, games, toys, everything!  Plus with bulldozers shoving down concrete walls and that giant crawl thing ripping steel from concrete, it might have been easier to just cancel class and watch that instead of focusing the attention of twenty pre-schoolers on learning colors.

At my second nursery school, I only had to teach for fifteen minutes because they were having a birthday party for all of the kids with May birthdays.  It was cute.  Each of the kids had to come forward and sit in the chairs at the front of the room.  Teachers spoke for the kids who were too young to talk, saying what food they liked, their “hobbies,” (honestly though, does a three-year-old have “hobbies”?) and what day their birthday was.  The younger kids looked terrified to be sitting in the seats in front of everyone, but they were so well behaved and didn’t cry or anything!  I didn’t get to stay for the whole ceremony, but it was still really precious, and I’m glad I saw some of it!

Today was my elementary day, and I had the best recess that I’ve had in a while.  As soon as I walked outside, I saw a group of about a dozen kids clustered near the bushes.  They screamed for me to walk over, and I started to until a couple of kids said “Snake!  Snake!”  NOPE!  When they saw me walk away, a couple of the girls ran over to me and said, “Melissa-sensei, snake!  Snake!” and pulled on my hand to get me to come over.  OH HECK NO!  I told them that I didn’t like snakes AT ALL.  I believe that the only good snake is a DEAD snake, but I actually felt BAD for that snake because those kids just WOULDN’T leave it alone.  There were kids on either side of the bush taunting it and splashing it with water.  They did that the ENTIRE recess time.  Poor guy!

I played tag with some of the other kids, and we had a great time.  It was one of those days when there was no wind, and it was just too dang muggy.  When we tired, I sat down and started making clover chains, which resulted in a dozen kids swarming me and asking for a necklace, bracelet, ring, etc.  I love clover chains!!  A couple of kids started pinching my arm flab where muscles should be and telling me how good and squishy it feels.  Nothing like a couple of elementary school students to make you feel bad about yourself!

That’s all for now!