{"id":31707,"date":"2013-08-27T12:06:40","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T16:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=31707"},"modified":"2014-06-24T20:27:33","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T00:27:33","slug":"life-after-jet-moving-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2013\/08\/27\/life-after-jet-moving-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Life After JET: Moving On"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted by <a href=\"www.commdao.com\">blogger<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"soundcloud.com\/discussionswithdao\">podcaster<\/a>\u00a0<strong>Jon Dao<\/strong>\u00a0<em><strong>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/groups?mostPopular=&amp;gid=3755165&amp;trk=myg_ugrp_ovr\">Toyama<\/a>-ken, 2009-12).<\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/discussionswithdao.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/08\/thelowdao28.jpg?w=614&amp;h=374\" alt=\"\" width=\"491\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Back in the USA! Two former Toyama ALTs discuss the ins and outs of Post\u00a0<a href=\"www.jetprogramme.org\">JET<\/a>\u00a0life:<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"81\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F155883485&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=true&show_user=false&show_reposts=false&color=011013\"><\/iframe>\n<p><strong>Sketchy English Teaching Jobs (4:12)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some of them are\u00a0<em>shady<\/em>. Some of them won&#8217;t give you pension or health insurance. &#8221; &#8211; Val<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well, the warning sign were 1)\u00a0\u00a0&#8216;Come over on a tourist visa and we&#8217;ll take care of it when you&#8217;re here&#8217; and 2) &#8216;We&#8217;re not going to be able to process your first paycheck until after two months&#8217;.&#8221; &#8211; Jon<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Decision to Leave (8:55)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I had wanted to stay for another year or two, and I started looking for other work outside of English teaching. I actually submitted applications and had gotten interviews. And once I got those interviews, I realized I didn&#8217;t want to take them. I think in the back of my head, I was thinking &#8216;If I take this job, will I ever be able to get out of my comfort zone and leave&#8217;? I think a lot of ALTs are just so comfortable in Japan for whatever reason.&#8221; &#8211; Val<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Breaking Away from Students\/Schools (10:08)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Breaking up with the students and the teachers&#8211; even that whole town&#8211; was difficult. It was tough. I was really involved with that school and the sports teams there.&#8221; &#8211; Randy<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I had a friend tell me &#8216;Just go home, I guarantee the only thing you&#8217;ll miss about Japan is the shopping and the students&#8217;. All your friends, the ALTs, they&#8217;re all going to leave eventually.&#8221; &#8211; Val<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What You Miss (13:36)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t ever hear people say they miss the work.&#8221; &#8211; Jon<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>English Education in Asia (15:22)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Is my teaching doing any good? I know it helps a handful of students, but for the rest I don&#8217;t know if it makes a huge impact.&#8221; &#8211; Val<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I found that probably my best students had a strong interest in movies and music. They&#8217;d write these quotes that they&#8217;re hearing or seeing and actually bringing them to me, asking me &#8216;What does this mean&#8217;? They would come day after day with new content. Those are the kids that ended up going to the best high schools just because of their self-motivation and drive.&#8221; &#8211; Randy<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Decision Tips on Whether to Stay (18:36)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t do this just for the money. And if you decide to do so, even though you hate everyone around you, shut up.&#8221; &#8211; Jon<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It got stale for me. I didn&#8217;t have any personal motivation to improve. I really didn&#8217;t have any personal drive the latter part of my JET year. That connection I had with my kids was what really kept me going.&#8221; &#8211; Randy<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was so stressed out. I called my close friends for advice. I wanted to stay, but I don&#8217;t know if I should because it&#8217;s making me sick. My Dad refers to Japan as Lala Land. &#8216;I think you&#8217;re having fun. You were having a lot of fun, but you can&#8217;t keep doing that if you&#8217;re not growing as a person.&#8221; &#8211; Val<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Attraction to Japan (24:36)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are ALT people in Taiwan too. Most of them don&#8217;t stay. I don&#8217;t know if they have the same hangup about leaving like people do about Japan.&#8221; &#8211; Val<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doing Things Differently (27:15)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just be more myself when I first arrived. When I first came, I look a lot like the people around me in Japan. It&#8217;s really easy for me to go with the flow and blend in with all the other teachers. But after awhile, I said I can&#8217;t really do this anymore, I&#8217;m not a Japanese teacher. Once I let that go, I was really able to enjoy my classes more.&#8221; &#8211; Randy<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The best thing to enjoy your time is to be active with the club activities.&#8221; &#8211; Val<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Omiyage Talk (32:40)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The biggest tip I have is&#8211; you don&#8217;t have to bring a lot of gifts for your school, BOE, mayor, etc. I did meet those people, but I ended up holding onto my omiyage and giving things to people who really took care of me. You should just bring enough for about 10 people. You&#8217;re not trying to buy out other people&#8217;s friendship.&#8221; &#8211; Randy<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Getting a Car (38:13)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you get put in a big city, then it doesn&#8217;t really matter. But I would really recommend getting a car. I made excuses about using the train, biking, walking around. You don&#8217;t want to pay for insurance and gas and that type of thing. But I was just really intimidated by the pedestrian traffic and smaller roads. Man, [having a car] would&#8217;ve made things so much easier.&#8221; &#8211; Jon&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pension Refund (42:00)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-post\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DiscussionsWithDao\/posts\/524355827638098\" data-width=\"552\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block;\"><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by blogger\u00a0and\u00a0podcaster\u00a0Jon Dao\u00a0(Toyama-ken, 2009-12). \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 &nbsp; Back in the USA! Two former Toyama ALTs discuss the ins and outs of Post\u00a0JET\u00a0life: Sketchy English Teaching Jobs (4:12) &#8220;Some of them are\u00a0shady. Some of them won&#8217;t give you pension or health insurance. &#8221; &#8211; Val &#8220;Well, the warning sign were 1)\u00a0\u00a0&#8216;Come over on a tourist visa [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[825],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifeafterjet"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-8fp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31707"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35412,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31707\/revisions\/35412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}