I've been existing for the past week in a mild state of stress, worry, and inadequacy, mostly occulted by flashy festivals, good friends, and occasional Good Karma.
But all those things need to RELAX for a second, and let me be something less than happy right now. Anything less than happy. Japan is not the problem. This is not that "down curve" we keep on making jokes about.
When I got to Yale, a part of me, that Overachiever Allie with a straight 100 average her entire life and the kickass college application and all the awards, stopped being. I was no longer the best, and so I had to come to terms with that. At Yale, EVERYONE is amazing, and I gain nothing from killing myself to beat everyone in everything. Hence the birth of Mediocre Allie. I struggled through almost every single one of my classes, struggled to get, maintain, and/or eventually lose leadership of things that were important to me, and struggled through simple person-to-person relationships.
And then sophomore year I decided to be slightly ambitious again, for afterall, now I had a plan. Transforming now into Poor Life Decisions Allie, I made the motherload of bad decisions and took Organic Chemistry and Intro Japanese together, along with the 23957 activities and shows I did. So, because of no time, things had to be sacrificed, and though Japanese was more important than Orgo (says the ex-Chem Major), the glory I had amounted in the first week of Nihongo class (in which we learned Hiragana and Katakana, which I had taught myself during the summer) came crashing down. Introducing: Dumbest Kid In Class Allie.
But I told myself things would be different this summer. After SOMEHOW getting the Light Fellowship (??), I would be in Japan, learning Japanese through sheer osmosis because I'd be surrounded by Nihonjin and of course their knowledge would just seep into my head.
I've never felt so stupid. And lost. And incapable. I'm so self-sufficient normally that this not being able to do ANYTHING by myself in this city because I can't speak Japanese and I can't understand when I'm spoken to is killing me. I hate bothering people, I don't like relying on others for everything, and I just don't know what to do here. I can't fend for myself. What have I spent almost an entire year doing if I can't even understand when the lady at the bus company's Lost and Found tells me to write down my name and address? This is just really overwhelming. But at the same time it's not like I have someone else to blame. We're being taught things, given the tools to unlock the Japanese language. But what can I do when I just don't know them? There have been no days where I've been able to successfully finish all my written homework AND prepare for the next day's readings and quizzes and A-san--B-san. It's because I'm back to being Dumbest Kid in Class Allie, and I could easily spend more than 6 hours a day doing all this work because I'm so slow at it. And STILL not know everything I should know at this point. I'm so blanketed by the SANC student community, but if I were on my own, I would have perished by now.
Japan abides by Survival of the Fittest, and I'll be the first one off the Island.
Y-A-L-E love all the way in Japan =]
![Y-A-L-E love all the way in Japan =]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzjNf7UE2Ebw2WbcWPIC7JDxDXefq142VBuIRDGbDAQP1_7PvCwr6JTLftGpPOJCATOpvx4xSDYwukkBiW3Pl6jB7IiQLZW5c7GMlpK_P-VKcmkvtX5hs-CNhqh2z7egFdSX2VtZ7FKS4w/s1600-r/Y-A-L-EResized.jpg)
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hang in there angle sis! i can totally relate to doing hours of work every day only to find you're completely unprepared for class/obnoxious daily quizzes, and then after finally managing to get through the day realizing you have a ton of homework waiting for you before you get do it all again bright and early tomorrow. It's so easy to get discouraged when you compare your language skills to other people around you (other people here are way better than me at chinese, not to mention the entire population of beijing...). But i've found it's just not worth it. remember how far YOU've come, all the things you know now (not just vocab and grammar patterns but about japanese culture, yourself, and life in general) that you didn't just a few weeks ago. your grades aren't who you are!
ResponderExcluir<3B/L
Mediocre and/or Poor Life Decisions Elliot totally gets this feeling. I've continually had this frustration or fear that coming to Japan now isn't worth it, that I'd be better off studying another year or two in the comparatively safe zone of a yale textbook before I tried to enter a society that assumes I inherently won't be able to make it.
ResponderExcluirBut the road to ぺらぺら is filled with fill-in-the-blank worksheets and memorized dialogues and a series of epic failures with varying degrees of hilarity. Sometimes you laugh at them and sometimes you feel miserable. The only way to get beyond this is to buckle down and do it. Its hard now, but before long we'll both be able to look back and suddenly be very surprised at how much better we've gotten (or at least that's how I'm working it works... I'll let you know if that actually turns out to be true for me. :p )
Please don't sell yourself short. Most kids at Yale quit when they're at the bottom because they can't handle it. And even if they don't quit altogether/ drop out/ drop the course, they stop trying and fall into despair about it.
ResponderExcluirYou on the other hand are trying really hard at something that doesn't come easy to you. GO YOU! That's inspirational. Stop beating yourself up, lest I come to Japan and we fight (LORD in heaven knows I cannot afford that at all).
Smile. Enjoy yourself. Don't feel bad because you feel good. It's your reward for an uphill battle.
Allie,
ResponderExcluirI know exactly how you're feeling, that was my first year. Don't do that to yourself, you're amazing. Keep going.