Huge Life Update
Dec. 31st, 2023 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aibanokokuhaku So, I noticed that people still stumble upon my dreamwidth once in a while. I guess in anticipation of the new year, I will explain why I disappeared!!!
I do have some more concerts and things I will go back and post on, but sadly, since February of 2020, I no longer live in Japan.
I divorced my ex husband for DV and was planning to spend a year in Korea so that my ex-husband would think I was gone for good as ex-husband stalkings are oddly common in Japan, then return to Japan in 2021. That was the plan. Two weeks before my flight (I had a job contract, visa sticker for Korea, everything) I start hearing about this Covid-19 virus. I decide starting in a new country during a pandemic would be too tough when I was already stressed from the divorce. I couldn't plan a new job and housing fast enough (I had quit my job February 8th), so I packed up and flew back to the US to stay with my grandma for a while. I was considering moving back to Japan after a while with a job lined up....
Lol.
I didn't anticipate the lockdowns and 1 year no-immigration to Japan. By then, I got tired of staying inside doing nothing with grandma (despite knocking out a Master's degree online while in lockdown) and got my own apartment in a nearby big city and began teaching in a middle school. But American schools are not like Japanese ones, and I hated teaching in K-12 in the US. Near the end of the first school year 2020-2021, after four months of hospitalization, my mother passed away of various ailments. She had dementia that came on pretty fast, too, so I think she probably didn't even realize I had divorced my ex-husband and moved back here, though she saw me in the hospital, but I have no idea if she recognized me because she couldn't speak anymore and never reacted. That messed with my head and made me very depressed. She passed two weeks before the school year finished, so I spent that whole summer laying around and crying. I went back to the school to work but I wasn't finding it rewarding, and the students were behaving much worse than the year before, except for the 6th graders, who were sweethearts and I still cherish my memories of them that school year. After that school year was done, I quit. I was paid through the summer still as that was how their contract works, and I rested (and noticed I got fat. lol I gained like 50 lbs from the time I lived in Japan until this point).
I was starting to feel better and began working at a university downtown as an ESL Professor, which I liked, since about 1/3 of the students were international students from Japan. It was fun and allowed me to use my Japanese skill, which I am still working hard to keep.
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The only reason I only did this job for one school year is the pay was not worth the hours. Teaching hours were 20-25 which are the only hours paid for, but I had to be in office as many hours as a full-time job, but once divided out, I was making less than my state's minimum wage. With a Master's degree, 10 years in the field, and Japanese skill, I found the pay to be unacceptable. It was around the time I began this job that I met someone and fell in love again. Halfway through the school year, just as I was exercising and lost 5 lbs-- I found out I was pregnant. So I finished the school year while feeling nauseous, and over the summer of 2023 I got married and we moved into a bigger apartment together. And in the second half of the school year, I began doing a second job on the university campus, exam proctoring for a big English exam on weekends. I continued this job until 4 weeks before my due date, and will be continuing the weekend exam proctoring in mid-January. I am currently interviewing for non-teaching remote part-time jobs to do during the week so that I can mostly stay home with my baby while he is little but also have my own income, as I refuse to let my husband pay for things like my student loans, the hospital bills from the birth, or any extra little "wants" I have.
My son was born the first week of November, 5oz shy of the line for being a "macro" newborn. I will give you one recent photo:
So, I am interviewing for jobs that are remote, some of which use Japanese, so I hope to land one. I am preparing to take the ACTFL in Japanese at advanced level this upcoming year.
I guess also in 2024, I am trying to lose some of the weight I have gained (being pregnant I gained even more, and when I first came home from the hospital I was about 100 lbs more than I had been in my previous blog photos. Now I am maybe 30 lbs lighter... so I still have a ways to go.)
I also have only attended one concert in the US since I came back (Escape the Fate, Hawthorne Heights, Story of the Year) last year, so I would like to go to at least 1 or 2 concerts in 2024. I met Escape the Fate (I have a picture with them!), and also the singer for Hawthorne Heights, so that's another little story to tell.
As far as going back to Japan goes, unless my husband gets a good job offer there, I don't see us moving there. Visiting, yes. So I hope we can move to an area of the US with a Japanese community. As much as I do miss the life I had there, I am happy to have a family now, so I am glad that I get to have a life with variety-- I lived a very adventurous time in my 20s, and now in my 30s, I am enjoying a more domestic life, though my husband does support me doing what makes me most happy-- so he says I can do any of the things I want, like improving my Japanese, publishing a novel, getting fit, whatever, so that's cool.
I'm glad I got to see Arashi live before they retired, and also to see Kishidan live like 6 times. In 2018/2019, I did go to more shows, especially kpop shows actually and met kpop idols, so I will post about that in the near future in my free time as writing practice (since I really do want to write a novel), so keep your eyes peeled for that!
See you in 2024!
I do have some more concerts and things I will go back and post on, but sadly, since February of 2020, I no longer live in Japan.
I divorced my ex husband for DV and was planning to spend a year in Korea so that my ex-husband would think I was gone for good as ex-husband stalkings are oddly common in Japan, then return to Japan in 2021. That was the plan. Two weeks before my flight (I had a job contract, visa sticker for Korea, everything) I start hearing about this Covid-19 virus. I decide starting in a new country during a pandemic would be too tough when I was already stressed from the divorce. I couldn't plan a new job and housing fast enough (I had quit my job February 8th), so I packed up and flew back to the US to stay with my grandma for a while. I was considering moving back to Japan after a while with a job lined up....
Lol.
I didn't anticipate the lockdowns and 1 year no-immigration to Japan. By then, I got tired of staying inside doing nothing with grandma (despite knocking out a Master's degree online while in lockdown) and got my own apartment in a nearby big city and began teaching in a middle school. But American schools are not like Japanese ones, and I hated teaching in K-12 in the US. Near the end of the first school year 2020-2021, after four months of hospitalization, my mother passed away of various ailments. She had dementia that came on pretty fast, too, so I think she probably didn't even realize I had divorced my ex-husband and moved back here, though she saw me in the hospital, but I have no idea if she recognized me because she couldn't speak anymore and never reacted. That messed with my head and made me very depressed. She passed two weeks before the school year finished, so I spent that whole summer laying around and crying. I went back to the school to work but I wasn't finding it rewarding, and the students were behaving much worse than the year before, except for the 6th graders, who were sweethearts and I still cherish my memories of them that school year. After that school year was done, I quit. I was paid through the summer still as that was how their contract works, and I rested (and noticed I got fat. lol I gained like 50 lbs from the time I lived in Japan until this point).
I was starting to feel better and began working at a university downtown as an ESL Professor, which I liked, since about 1/3 of the students were international students from Japan. It was fun and allowed me to use my Japanese skill, which I am still working hard to keep.
The only reason I only did this job for one school year is the pay was not worth the hours. Teaching hours were 20-25 which are the only hours paid for, but I had to be in office as many hours as a full-time job, but once divided out, I was making less than my state's minimum wage. With a Master's degree, 10 years in the field, and Japanese skill, I found the pay to be unacceptable. It was around the time I began this job that I met someone and fell in love again. Halfway through the school year, just as I was exercising and lost 5 lbs-- I found out I was pregnant. So I finished the school year while feeling nauseous, and over the summer of 2023 I got married and we moved into a bigger apartment together. And in the second half of the school year, I began doing a second job on the university campus, exam proctoring for a big English exam on weekends. I continued this job until 4 weeks before my due date, and will be continuing the weekend exam proctoring in mid-January. I am currently interviewing for non-teaching remote part-time jobs to do during the week so that I can mostly stay home with my baby while he is little but also have my own income, as I refuse to let my husband pay for things like my student loans, the hospital bills from the birth, or any extra little "wants" I have.
My son was born the first week of November, 5oz shy of the line for being a "macro" newborn. I will give you one recent photo:
So, I am interviewing for jobs that are remote, some of which use Japanese, so I hope to land one. I am preparing to take the ACTFL in Japanese at advanced level this upcoming year.
I guess also in 2024, I am trying to lose some of the weight I have gained (being pregnant I gained even more, and when I first came home from the hospital I was about 100 lbs more than I had been in my previous blog photos. Now I am maybe 30 lbs lighter... so I still have a ways to go.)
I also have only attended one concert in the US since I came back (Escape the Fate, Hawthorne Heights, Story of the Year) last year, so I would like to go to at least 1 or 2 concerts in 2024. I met Escape the Fate (I have a picture with them!), and also the singer for Hawthorne Heights, so that's another little story to tell.
As far as going back to Japan goes, unless my husband gets a good job offer there, I don't see us moving there. Visiting, yes. So I hope we can move to an area of the US with a Japanese community. As much as I do miss the life I had there, I am happy to have a family now, so I am glad that I get to have a life with variety-- I lived a very adventurous time in my 20s, and now in my 30s, I am enjoying a more domestic life, though my husband does support me doing what makes me most happy-- so he says I can do any of the things I want, like improving my Japanese, publishing a novel, getting fit, whatever, so that's cool.
I'm glad I got to see Arashi live before they retired, and also to see Kishidan live like 6 times. In 2018/2019, I did go to more shows, especially kpop shows actually and met kpop idols, so I will post about that in the near future in my free time as writing practice (since I really do want to write a novel), so keep your eyes peeled for that!
See you in 2024!
