If you're reading this blog, you might have worked with me, be related to me or put up with me in some sort of prolonged way, stopping by to see what this blog and Japan business is all about. First, I'd like to say "Thanks for stopping by!" Next, I think just about anyone who has talked to me the last five years or so, has probably heard me ramble about traveling in some way. I've honestly always enjoyed traveling, from helping my dad plan the road trips back from Missouri as a kid to taking a group of high school kids (and select adults) to Italy and Greece for ten days. It is the main reason I applied for my current job here in Alabama. At first it was strange moving away from so many of my friends who are practically my family, and most of the time, my actual family. Thankfully its 2018, so it if you're not keeping in touch with someone in some sort of regularity, then you're just not trying.
The move to Alabama is something that I've surely written about in some previous years' blog, so I won't drone on about it now. If you're feeling nostalgic, here's a link from my first blog that I started in 2009 or the link from my last blog that I started in 2013. If you feel like taking that fun little walk, you'll see that the last five years have produced much fewer blogs than the several prior. We can dissect the meaning behind that later, but for now just know that I'm going to attempt to start to blog somewhat regularly again. I know we have facebook, which is an easy way to share pictures and quick blurbs about life and things. But especially since I'll be in a very different time zone, I think for the continued communication to continue to be meaningful, I might need to share more than just "240 characters" and five pictures a day.
So here we are, at my new blog, two weeks away from being on a plane to Japan! I don't think I shared with everyone how most of this played out so here's a quick rundown:
Interview
In Late May, I received an email to interview at Yokota MS from the school secretary and scheduled an interview for June 7 at 5:00 pm. This gave me plenty of time to completely stress about and overthink every thing that I wanted to say to make myself sound as awesome as I think I can be. The interview was short and I didn't feel like I had completely trashed it.
Waiting
Then I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and .....well, you get the point.
New School Year
I went back to work on July 30th preparing for another school year at Maxwell, realizing that I would be living in my apartment for the longest amount of time since I lived with my parents in high school! Then on August 2nd, minutes before Meet the Teacher was scheduled to begin, I refreshed my email just sort of impatiently waiting for it to start. It was a tentative offer for the job that I had interviewed for SO long ago. I needed to tell someone and I didn't want to just text them. So I went into the teachers bathroom and called my dad on speaker phone. I made him look at his phone so I could send him a screenshot of the email that I had just received. Before he read it, he kept grumbling about things, as he does. We celebrated for a few moments, but then I had to go. So I told dad not to say anything so that I could tell people myself and went back and tried to remain calm as parents and students were showing up. Many of the girls were asking about the upcoming Volleyball season and I just tried to give a vague answer as I quickly realized that meant I wouldn't be coaching volleyball this year. I told my principal, Lee, and a few other friends at school before leaving and then called and FaceTimed the rest of my family that had known about the job, along with sending texts in a few of my group chats with people that I know from Amarillo. I returned my first round of paperwork accepting the offer.
More waiting
After the initial acceptance, I got more paperwork to do with no idea when I would be going. I was nervous to tell many people at first because I had no idea if something would come up that would prevent me from going or how soon it would happen. So there was a long period of paperwork and waiting for more confirmation. I applied for my official passport, got a physical, took care of some other things that needed to be done and waited some more.
Official-ish
Finally on August 24th, I received an email with a "firm offer" of a position at Yokota MS. At this point, most of the teachers at the school knew, but I still had to do a bit more waiting. I knew the next steps were to schedule my pack-out dates and flights, but couldn't do that until I had travel orders. I started to grow concerned that my 60 day notice that I had turned into my apartments wasn't going to be enough time. That maybe I would be here a really long time. I decided to go visit a friend of mine that just moved to Knoxville over Labor Day weekend, as a trip to Texas would take too much time and I didn't really know when life would bring me back this way.
Officially Official
Finally on September 5th, I received Travel Orders, which meant things could happen. I was stuck a bit because I was still waiting on my Official Passport. However, by the end of the day on September 7th, I had a seat on a plane to my new duty station and dates scheduled for the movers to come and pack my stuff. Since I had an idea that morning, I chatted with my principal and decided to go ahead and tell my classes the news. This was quite funny. The only time I've ever done anything like this was when I told the students at HCCA that I wasn't coming back next year. I had talked about it so long that I knew exactly what I wanted to say to those kids. However, with three minutes left of my first class, I still had no clue what I would say to them. I said something about the school being a military community and we're used to moving around alot. I've accepted a position at a school in Japan. (This was the funny part) The kids were really excited for me.....until I said "So I'll be your teacher for about another two weeks." Then they went crazy! lol They were happy for me, but wanted me to be in two places at once, or possibly take me with them. Like when I told the HCCA kids, I asked them not to talk about it in the hallways until the end of the day, so that all the students could hear it from me. I'm always a little shocked at how well they do that. Maybe because I'm a terrible gossip and there's no way I could have gone the whole day without telling someone big news like that. (Let's table that dissection for a later discussion)
Now the fun part!
Now my last 9 days in Alabama are pretty well planned out/scheduled so that I can get everything done that I need to and hang out with these super, cool amazing people that I've gotten to know in my short time here. Leaving Alabama isn't something that I've been able to think about too much. Even when I left Midland, it was only a 3 hour drive from Amarillo and I knew that if I wanted to come back and visit it wouldn't be difficult. When I left Amarillo, I knew I'd be back visiting at holidays and summer and stuff. Who knows when or how often I'll make my way back to the South. Although, I'm not going to lie...I could totally retire some place down here some day. The beach is spectacular and the winter is AMAZING. And now you know the whole story....well mostly. I think. The highlights at least, the parts worth retelling and archiving for future generations. The next post should be from JAPAN!!
Jikai made
(Until next time...at least I hope that's what it says)
