Just about 1 year ago (pt.1)
It would take a few minutes for me to place the exact date, but basically I wanted to take the time and think about these events during a time that impacted my life so much. It must be the combination of Brown's Spring Weekend events and watching kids receive First Communion at the church I go to in Kobe, but it sparked a lot of thinking back and wanting to express it.
Brown's Spring Weekend in 2011 was a week earlier I remember, because I actually skipped out on Spring Weekend to go to Indiana on a weekend retreat from April 15-17 to visit Notre Dame University. I had been accepted to a 2-year teaching program there that placed recent college grads in Catholic schools. The acceptance came soon after the Tohoku earthquake in Japan, and feeling unsettled over waiting for JET and the desire to keep my options open, I took the program's offer and was invited to visit campus with other members of the program. A free trip to a college campus, and the people I had been in contact with were really personable and made me feel so much like I was going to do such great service to the school they had assigned me, the 3rd grade class in Sacramento that I would be teaching. I went on the trip with an open mind but with the nagging feeling that I wasn't 100% invested.
Thinking back on it now, it was like a scene from a movie. The welcome dinner that Friday night, April 15, the very first event where the new teachers were all together, and my iphone (only about 2 weeks old at the time and I was already attached) starts vibrating. Checking it under the table, I saw that I had an email from JET. Due to the earthquake, we had been alerted that results would be delayed, and it had come to the point where I had stopped checking the forums every day for new information. Of course once I forgot it, that's when it came. Still acclimating to the email interface, I found myself excusing myself to check the email in the hallway. Short list? What? What does that mean? A few texts back and forth with my boy (also ditching Spring Weekend, but for ping-pong nationals in Minnesota) confirmed that short list meant accepted, and I just had to accept their offer.
I don't know how I got through the rest of that weekend. I cried a lot (I probably cried more in April than any other month at Brown). I called my mom, I called my boyfriend, I did my best at making friends with the people at the program. On Sunday morning, everyone gathered for Mass, and after we had presentations and speeches from person after person, all with the reminder that this choice was a wonderful dedication of service to our brothers and sisters in Christ. At one point, I calmly walked out of the room, and hid in the darkest hallway I could find, and called my mom, crying with guilt. "What if I don't want to do this Mommy?" I asked her, "Would I still be a good person?" She chastised me for even saying such a thing, but I couldn't help it. What kind of person would 1) agree to the teaching program in the first place with doubts, and 2) turn down the teaching program upon meeting so many people that were excited for her to accept an offer to teach in Japan? What kind of person? She further scolded me into not crying anymore (my mom's primary way of dealing with my crying is to scold me about it and tell me not to cry anymore) and told me that nothing could be decided while I was still in Indiana, and to simply get through the rest of the time as best as possible and think more about it when I got back to Brown.
I wish I could say that right away, I knew that this kind of freaking out meant that I really wanted to go to Japan, and the best thing to do would have been to rectify my situation immediatly, and move on quickly and get ready for going to Japan--but that wasn't how it happened at all.
Brown's Spring Weekend in 2011 was a week earlier I remember, because I actually skipped out on Spring Weekend to go to Indiana on a weekend retreat from April 15-17 to visit Notre Dame University. I had been accepted to a 2-year teaching program there that placed recent college grads in Catholic schools. The acceptance came soon after the Tohoku earthquake in Japan, and feeling unsettled over waiting for JET and the desire to keep my options open, I took the program's offer and was invited to visit campus with other members of the program. A free trip to a college campus, and the people I had been in contact with were really personable and made me feel so much like I was going to do such great service to the school they had assigned me, the 3rd grade class in Sacramento that I would be teaching. I went on the trip with an open mind but with the nagging feeling that I wasn't 100% invested.
Thinking back on it now, it was like a scene from a movie. The welcome dinner that Friday night, April 15, the very first event where the new teachers were all together, and my iphone (only about 2 weeks old at the time and I was already attached) starts vibrating. Checking it under the table, I saw that I had an email from JET. Due to the earthquake, we had been alerted that results would be delayed, and it had come to the point where I had stopped checking the forums every day for new information. Of course once I forgot it, that's when it came. Still acclimating to the email interface, I found myself excusing myself to check the email in the hallway. Short list? What? What does that mean? A few texts back and forth with my boy (also ditching Spring Weekend, but for ping-pong nationals in Minnesota) confirmed that short list meant accepted, and I just had to accept their offer.
I don't know how I got through the rest of that weekend. I cried a lot (I probably cried more in April than any other month at Brown). I called my mom, I called my boyfriend, I did my best at making friends with the people at the program. On Sunday morning, everyone gathered for Mass, and after we had presentations and speeches from person after person, all with the reminder that this choice was a wonderful dedication of service to our brothers and sisters in Christ. At one point, I calmly walked out of the room, and hid in the darkest hallway I could find, and called my mom, crying with guilt. "What if I don't want to do this Mommy?" I asked her, "Would I still be a good person?" She chastised me for even saying such a thing, but I couldn't help it. What kind of person would 1) agree to the teaching program in the first place with doubts, and 2) turn down the teaching program upon meeting so many people that were excited for her to accept an offer to teach in Japan? What kind of person? She further scolded me into not crying anymore (my mom's primary way of dealing with my crying is to scold me about it and tell me not to cry anymore) and told me that nothing could be decided while I was still in Indiana, and to simply get through the rest of the time as best as possible and think more about it when I got back to Brown.
I wish I could say that right away, I knew that this kind of freaking out meant that I really wanted to go to Japan, and the best thing to do would have been to rectify my situation immediatly, and move on quickly and get ready for going to Japan--but that wasn't how it happened at all.
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