The Trick to Looking Busy

In a country where it's not how much work you do or how well you do it but how long your ass is in the chair, it is vitally important to either (a) have something to work on and occupy your time or (b) make it look like you are doing something vitally important. This is the key distinction.

When I first arrived, I attempted to be mister perfect and I planned for 2-3 weeks ahead for class with my spare time. This earned me much praise and reluctant high-fives (Japanese people are uncomfortable with high-fives from my experience). But I soon came to realize that I was working too hard. This always seems to happen to me, I work extremely hard in the beginning and start to slack off when I know I can get away with it. I suppose that is the most beneficial order, if I were to slack off first and then work hard I would probably have been deported already.

My reasons for writing today are two-fold. First off, I want to address this issue of spare time because one of my friends here in Japan is having an internal re-contracting battle (Faust-ian angles and demons on her shoulders, except they are not angels and demons, they are two islands, Japan and England). And secondly, To further elucidate how awesome my job is. In any job there is going to be a certain amount of free time, depending on the day, season, job etc. I just never understood the complaint about free time at work. I would kill to have a job where all I had to do was sit at a desk and stare at a wall. There's no responsibility, no pressure, no conceivable reason to get out of bed in the morning and, presumably, no fun. Of course, this sounds awful. But just imagine the possibilities. Think of all the books you could read, all the internet websites you could see, all the music you could listen to, all the studying you could get done. Needless to say, this fictional job sounds great. But there are no jobs like that, so I have had to set my standards a bit lower. At work every week, I teach a total of 15-18 classes. This means that even on a busy week, I am only teaching approximately 15-20 hours per week (rounding up to calculate for preparation time).

What the heck am I to do with myself for the other 20 hours every week? There is a myriad of things I could be doing at any one time. For instance, reading at my desk, listening to music (pretending to work), editing papers, pretending to edit papers (really means sleeping with my eyes open), drawing comics, reading comics, writing blogs, reading blogs, reading the news, playing sudoku and crossword puzzles, taking a long lunch break, studying Japanese, talking with teachers, tutoring students, wandering campus, surfing the internet, ordering things on amazon, emailing friends and family, practicing martial arts, hanging around the vending machine, meditating (sleeping with my eyes closed), watching movies on my Ipod, or lesson planning. The real trick to getting away with doing many of these things, is to look really busy while doing them. So, if you are listening to music at your desk, you should have a piece of paper and a notebook out and be taking notes and writing things down. Make it look like you are trying to pick out songs to play for your students. If you are going to be risky and take a nap at your desk, try and fall asleep while grading papers with a red pen in your hand. If you are fiddling around on the internet, always have another website opened or Microsoft Word opened to a "potential" lesson plan or activity. This strategy I learned from my TV hero, George Costanza.

These are just suggestions from my own person experience. Without activities to entertain yourself, this job would be rather boring for the average person. I learned long ago that rushing to get things done and out of the way only adds more things to your plate. I love my job and I have been told that I am a good teacher (how that's possible, given my work ethic, I do not know). In my time here, I have read 15 books, listened to 8 books on audio, learned over 100 kanji characters, wrote many, many pages of blogs and notes, started learning 3 weapons (Bo, Sai, Nunchaku) and unarmed combat and karate techniques, and seen almost everything there is to see on the internet. Thus is the freedom and versatility of my job, yes, yes...I know. Not every JET AET has this experience, but for a majority of the people I know, this is the case more or less.

p.s. One of my teachers came up to me and asked me to write the graduation motto for the outgoing 3rd year students. So together, we came up with, "Be wise, sincere, and vigorous in every moment." I cannot tell you if I like this motto but when I suggested vigorous, half in jest, the teacher loved the idea. It is based on the school's creed, translated into English. I suggested, "Go forth and set the world on fire," but he said the Japanese students would not understand and would take the metaphor literally (which might have been fun to watch).