#moshetei in america

[m0shete1]

The most exciting part of my job so far these past two days:

A kid bought a DVD and it was still in the security case, so we spent 20 minutes trying to crack it open with all the tools in the toolbox, and finally did. 

We are champions, and now that kid can watch Forrest Gump.

[m0shete1]

A Hanazawa Rui wanna be just walked into the rotunda. It’s amazing. Black turtle neck, silver pendant necklace, sparkly gold watch, distressed skinny jeans,,, long black trench coat, black leather man purse with Marilyn Monroe’s face on it, at least four rings on all of his fingers....and black leather shoes. I’m trying to paint you a picture, but I am doing terribly.

[m0shete1]

Today, fancy people from Keio University in Tokyo are visiting the school, and the cafeteria STEPPED UP THEIR GAME. I am completely slayed right now- so much fried chicken, pizza, cheese platter cheese, and chocolate fountain dipped fruits/cake are coursing through my system right now, and all I’m thinking is that I want to go back and get more. I won’t because they had ICE CREAM and I made a scene as I was filling up my takeout container. 

So pleased.

[m0shete1]

Last night I went out with my old college buds and we had margaritas and I ate a burrito filled with BBQ chicken and mac and cheese, and then we hopped around bars, ending up at some Irish one where we were basically the only ones dancing until 12:30am or so, and then a stranger tried to set me up with all the tall men in the bar and it was an experience. 

and now im incredibly sore because I chose to do a legs day hiit circuit before leaving for the city, and my squat muscles are rejecting me. 

[m0shete1]

Guys, sometimes this job doesn’t suck. This weekend, while boring and sucky because I am stuck on campus, was actually pretty good. I had a few moments with a few of the kids that reminded me why I like working with children. 

Although i will say, the way kids put EVERYTHING on snapchat is sort of concerning. A few girls were over at mine today to get cookies, and evidently footage of them goofing around on my exercise ball is up on snapchat. Along with footage of me screaming GET OUT OF MY HOUSE.

[m0shete1]

Honestly I am SO over the attitude that some of these high schoolers toss out. They need tickets to leave campus this weekend and when I told this girl that, she flips a hissy fit. I’m like, I have a list right here if you tell me your name you wont have to go all the way back to your room to get it but she is like, 100% committed to being snotty. It’s like, bitch, I am doing you a favor, calm the fuck down.

[m0shete1]

Health Pig Diaries: aka The Struggle to Find Balance after Returning to America (re: food)

December 9th, 2015

I finished watching my last episode of The Legends of Korra today, which is why “finding balance,” being true to myself, finding my own inner peace in the spirit realm, yadda yadda yadda, is fresh in my mind. #healthpig is a hashtag that has taken on a whole new meaning since coming back from JET (as much meaning as a hashtag can have...). In Japan, #healthpig started off as a convenient way to incorporate Dominoes Pizza, Chicken Wings, and the occasional dessert blowout with @pooki-chu into a new “healthy lifestyle” I was trying to discover. As I got more and into the gym, and more and more into cooking for myself, #healthpig became a way to document these triumphs. I was still a pig at heart, but a pig headed in the right direction. It felt good to be the healthpig. The Healthpig was shedding pounds, cooking up some fancy ass delicacies, and in general being awesome. 

It’s been four months since I’ve returned to America and I feel like healthpig has been hibernating. Let me tell you... Food is HARD here!...

In Japan, GOOD ASS FOOD was a treat: the rainy day Dominoes when you literally had no more shame, the Chicken wings that you only got to eat if you went to the gym a lot or were extremely depressed*, the occasional dessert blowouts... Even the tri-weekly donuts at Mr. Donuts (which granted, was a lot of donuts) and the fancy dinners I would make myself, all of those were treats. They were lovingly thought up, planned over the course of a few free periods at work. Recipes were investigated, friends were called (primarily to debate if I were allowed to have chicken wings again this week), coupons were searched for (Dominoes has excellent rainy day deals in Japan). Food was a treat, and so was losing weight/feeling healthier. HEALTH and PIG were balanced and the Healthpig was (mostly) happy and content. 

In America, that isn’t the case. Japan style “Good ass food” is everywhere- I don’t mean good sushi or excellent yakiniku, I mean those things that you CRAVE that Japan just doesn’t do- good cheese, Chipotle, more than one flavor of Oreo, a cafeteria serving up cheese stuffed pasta at least once a week, Dunkin Donuts coffee, restaurants with refillable soda**, etc. That stuff is everywhere. And when I came back, I ate it all. Foraging through my mother’s cabinets, I ate mac and cheese I didn’t really want, only because I hadn’t had it in a while. I chewed my ass through probably 5 different flavors of Oreos in 2 months. I think in my first 2-3 months, I had cheap Chinese food 15 times. And the thing is, I didn’t even really want it... I mean, I wanted to eat it, but I didn’t want that sort of stuff to sneak back into what was once a happy and content, moderately health minded person. 

But in it snuck. As the face in the mirror slowly started to expand, the brain behind it started panicking. WHAT IF I GO BACK TO MY OLD SIZE?! WHAT IF I HAVE TO BUY NEW PANTS?! WHAT DOES BEING THIS SIZE MEAN IN AMERICAN TERMS***!?These worries were aggravated by the Great Work Bullshit of October, The Great Dental Disaster of July, The Great OH FUCK I AM LIVING NEAR MY FAMILY AGAIN Trauma of 2015, The Great I Have No Friends Mondai of my Whole Life in America, and the Great “My Couch has literally got a my ass shaped cavity in it now” Situation of the Year. I started to stress eat, my pants got tighter, I stress ate more... My free time was spent binge watching Netflix/Amazon Prime TV shows until my eyes teared up, or in the car with a coworker, spending all day shopping at places I sometimes only half wanted to be at****. Health and Pig were out of sync- I was just a pig. The food was still sooo delicious, but the thoughts that paced through my head afterwards were not.

Finally, I’m making an effort to get myself under control. I joined a gym and try to go 3 times a week. I’ve been making better choices at the cafeteria, and buying my own food to supplement theirs. I walk a little more in my day to day life, and actually exercise on that stability ball in my house at least once a week (otherwise I just roll around on the ground with it, but it’s so fun still). As enough of these small changes pile up, I find myself doing other little things, just to make me happy. I’ve been enjoying quiet cups of tea on my couch while reading a book. I started knitting again, and learned a new pattern. I sewed another patch in my ratty Japan leggings pants. I bought a cheap little paint set from Walmart. I started creating better boundaries between myself and my coworkers, so I had some time in each day for myself, and I didn’t feel guilty about it. I lit a candle. I made a friend. Little things that make me feel like a real person. 

Who knows, maybe today is just a good day, and tomorrow my decision to not go to the gym (I haven’t slept past 7 all week, and a coworker is having games at his house at 1pm and I’m going Friday dont lecture me) will throw me back into another spiral of sad. And let’s be real, how long can I expect myself to keep eating spinach salads and NOT eating cookies... Either way, it’s definitely going to be a journey, learning how to balance “delicious American foods” that I honestly love eating (Chinese food, I’m looking at you) with what I “should” be eating (Oh hey, Kale. Long time no eat).  The struggle is real, but it’s worth it. Because Healthpig was awesome: She felt decent about herself, she was surrounded by people who she cared about and who cared about her, and she turned every day, no matter how small and uneventful, into a celebration. Hopefully America and I can work together and fine that beautiful son of a bitch again. 

fin.

*After the ex and I broke up, I think I gained 5lbs SOLELY in Fuji Grand Tebasaki. 

**I was on a date the first time I realized that the soda could be refilled. It was right after I got back, and I guess I’d forgotten, because my date thought I was crazy.

***In Japan I was DEKKAI, which never made me feel good. Worst case scenario, I could conveniently file any weird stares under the “I am also tall and brown and big haired in addition to big and so no one has ever seen a human like me before maybe” part of my brain. In America, there are plenty of people of various sizes- granted, maybe not many women as tall as me, but i didn’t think it would be that strange. So I’m struggling to find the correct files for the stares I get here, which makes it hard to handle that stress induced self doubt that comes around sometimes. 

**** Don’t get me wrong, I love that she takes me out and I like seeing little things around my area, but sometimes I would really not want to do anything, but I would also not want to disappoint her, so I would go anyway and make myself angry and irritable. 

[m0shete1]

soooo....

What will follow is a brief (ok, not so brief) text rant about my new job and being in America in general, written at an extremely low point in my week. 

I had high hopes for this job. On paper, it’s the dream- right up the alley of what I want to do in the future, a chance to work in a school with kids, which is what I loved about my JET job, an apartment where I can live rent free, and travel into the now much closer NYC and live the dream. But basically, it’s not been working out like that, and random work bullshit has got me wondering if I need a change already. So, without further ado, and with a random shoutout to @readysetgaikokujin​, who loves lists, i will present you with the following:

A List of Reasons Why Coming Back to America Hasn’t Been That Great

 The job: The actual job isn’t bad- I like working with the students, the girls on my floor (for the most part) are friendly, the food is good... but training was scattered, much in a JET way, and the atmosphere here is toxic. Take all of those little things you love to hate about working in a Japanese office-- the weird power dichotomies, the looking busy for the sake of looking busy, the fact that problems get pushed around in circles because no one wants to make a decision, the need to know your place... take all of that, distort it, and amplify it, and you’ve got what working here is like sometimes. It’s way way way way worse than Japan was. They say this place has it’s own culture, and getting used to it is hard. In two months, I’ve managed to piss off this one clique for reasons like, being too friendly (”We are your coworkers, not your friends. What should it matter to you if we don’t like you.”), knocking too loudly on someone’s door (a student was having a medical emergency, so yeah, I knocked loudly), and for “not being humble.” I could literally go on forever about all the random stuff I’ve been yelled at for here, and the thing is, it’s only one lady who really dislikes me and goes out of her way to make my life here miserable. She’s done it to other staff members, and the few coworkers who are friendly to me here lament my plight, saying that eventually she should switch targets, but until that point, I’m pretty much condemned to misery.

Friends- Making friends as an adult is HARD. I still don’t know anyone in my area, and it’s hard to meet people with the irregular hours that I have. A few of my coworkers are nice, and hopefully we get to a point where we go off campus together and be social, but for now it’s just me and netflix and I don’t know how our relationship will work out. 

Being unable to drive is inconvenient as shit. While not impossible, the lack of car combined with my irregular sleep schedule mean that by the time I’m ready to go out the door, I don’t really have enough time to get anywhere and make it back to campus by 4pm, when work starts.

One other job thing- There are weird rules that all the staff here have to follow, because other past staff fucked shit up for all of us. Things like, no visitors without permission, no overnight visitors of the opposite sex, no consuming alcohol on the premises, etc. I understand all of these rules, as they apply to the safety of the children in the dorms, but surely hiring me to watch these children means that you trust me and my judgement. I’m not going to bring any old asshole home, or turn this into a party house, or get drunk all the time with these hypothetical friends I’ve created. It just seems weird. 

Food. This has also come as a bit of a shock to me. I am not enjoying the American food as much as I thought I would. Sure, I’ve eaten like, 15 oreos or something in the past few hours. And yes, I have had chinese takeout more times than I can count since coming back. But the benefit of having these foods whenever I want is being outweighed by the fact that I miss Japanese food, and I’m gaining inches like crazy, making me feel like a gross oreo blob. I’m joining a gym next week and will hopefully see a resurgence of healthpig, but it hasn’t been easy. 

Reflection- Sitting around with netflix has left me a lot of time to reflect on my life in Japan, and put me in a weird headspace, particularly when it comes to my exes. I don’t know why, but I find myself stalking the exbfs FB page more and more, and it’s completely unhealthy, but I can’t stop doing it.

There have been some good things though! I’ve gotten to see some old friends, and being nearer to my family is nice. I’ve met some new people, and been on a few dates with this dude who I think is cool and would like to see more of. Some of the students are really great, and me and the kitchen staff are so tight now. I started the Walking Dead, and upstate NY fall is great.... That is a really lame way to end, but the point is, not all of it is bad. But I’m definitely DEFINITELY not at 100%. So if you happen to see me wandering around NY somewhere, hug me bc I probably need it. 

[m0shete1]

ATTN JETS- You are doing the world a disservice

After a week working at a Japanese high school in America, I can tell you with certainty that competence in English just makes high school boys even more annoying. 

*boys throw popcorn all over the lounge area*

me; I hope you plan on cleaning up that mess....

chorus of sarcastic spiky haired youths: Yes, yes. Of Course. Of course. *bowing* *grab one piece of popcorn* of course. Of course. Now. Immediately.

Now they are swinging lacrosse sticks around inside and avoiding eye contact. Youths.

[m0shete1]

A preteen in a cat ear headband approached at Nordstrom rack and asked where I got my gudetama bag. This is very telling.

[m0shete1]

Mondayy

I begin my work as a Dorm Supervisor at a Japanese boarding school! I’m excited- just found out that my apartment is much bigger than my jet house and bigger than I expected and gaahh! It will be nice to get out of this house and into my own

[m0shete1]

Rank this Incomplete List of American Food Related Experiences I Have Engaged In and am Ashamed of.

Coming back to America has been an crazy experience, made crazier by complete lack of will power... So... 

Rank these things I’ve done since coming back to America in order from least shameful to most shameful. I can’t decide. I am not proud of any of these, except maybe number 2 because that’s awesome. 

Eating sliced cheese while my chinese food was heating up in the microwave because I couldn’t wait the 2 minutes I’d put it in for, because I was hungry. 

had chinese food 4 times in 1 week, despite knowing that it was going to be terrible. 

Ate minion shaped Cheese-its, despite harboring an intense hatred for minions. 

kept the box of cheese-its next to my SVU watching chair for two days, just in case.

ate bacon bits by themselves.

tried to eat 20 wings at Buffalo Wild Wings while on a date. Only managed 15, and then complained about feeling like a failure for the rest of the night. 

Had to have a real sit down with myself about why it wasn’t a good idea to eat an entire giant bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms at the movies, and then ate half anyway. 

Made myself into a martyr at the ice cream parlor like, no, I don't want any. Then decided to get some to take home and eat tomorrow because I didn’t want to overdo it in one day. Then ate it anyway, later that night.

[m0shete1]

Overheard

My sister to her mine craft friends: do I look like Rihanna?!

Me: *whispers* no

[m0shete1]

Got one of my boxes from Japan

Cleaned up my space since I technically don't have a room. Unpacked a little. Got mad homesick for japan :(