How strange.  I have just written the momentous first email that departing ALTs must bring themselves to send to their successors. I remember when I received mine a year ago so well; it was the first time I became truly excited about moving to Japan. It feels like such a responsbility creating my successors first impressions of Hikari and being her main source of information and guidance in the run-up to her arrival in July.

 Yes, read July. I leave in August. Now that is strange. Jess had said to me some time ago that the relationship between successor and predecessor endlessly weaves between love and resentment, and I have come experience both sides of this now. In the case of my successor, I feel very protective of her and like I want to help her in every way I possibly can, and yet there is another part of me that is slightly outraged that I can simply be replaced overnight. I do wonder whether meeting her will ease the transition for me, and maybe even for her. I think it will be darned weird, whatever the potential benefits are. Obviously I cannot divulge too much info about her, and have omitted her name from this post, but I do know that she is very different to me, just as I am remarkably different to most of the things I’ve heard about Tammy.

These feelings directed towards my successor are part of a wider context of me trying to untangle to many realities that accompany my departure. One of those realities, one I have been denying but have now come to terms with, is that it is simply too soon to leave. My job is just starting to move places, and my opinion is just starting to count. As I’ve said before, one year is commonly considered too short a time to live in and become accustomed to the Japanese way of things, and I feel genuinely sorry for my teachers who have to become accustomed to a brand new ALT just as they have gotten used to this one.

Yet I’ve been something of a lone ranger certainly in the latter half of the year, and have pined for home more than I would like. I do think it’s time for me to go back and be around people again, or else I would be in grave danger of socially regressing, which I have noticed can happen to people who stay in Japan too long. I can see how it happens though, and have had to check myself a couple of times for being even more me me me than I am in England. When one comes from an individualist society into a place like Japan where the voice of the idividual matters less, and such tremendous language barriers exist, the opportunity to say ‘hey! Look/listen to me!’ around other English speakers is sometimes just a bit too tempting. It’s a chance to carve out one’s identity again, to be more than just foreign and to have some control.

Anyhow, this post is more a matter of procrastination than anything. I have to prepare the nest for Fran’s arrival in two weeks, and for me leaving my beautiful home shortly afterwards. The ‘posterity pile’ must be tackled, along with the room of denial. Ganbare yo!!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 7th, 2008 at 10:43 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.