Today was... long. It was my first day of doing lessons all on my own and I'm tired! I'm also frustrated and feeling very tense (literally, I can feel it in my muscles and my neck). I just want to do a good job as a teacher. I want my students to like me and for them to actually learn and all I hear from the teacher who is training me is everything I'm doing wrong. I know he's trying to give me advice and constructive criticism, but a little positive feedback would be nice too. I don't know... I know I'm probably just being too sensitive, but I'll finish a lesson thinking that it went pretty well and then as soon as it's finished he'll tell me all of the mistakes I made and the things I should have done differently. I just can never seem to do anything right in his eyes, but the crazy part is there were a number of things he did during lessons that seemed wrong or unnecessary to me! To be honest, even though he has helped me tremendously in familiarizing me with the school and the neighborhood, I'll be sort of glad when he's gone and I can just figure all of this out on my own without worrying about being judged by him.

There's also the issue of my age. When I applied for this job I thought that most of the other teachers would be about the same age as me but I was wrong, they're all older than me and I just feel very young and stupid... and I think people have been seeing me that way, even though I'm trying my hardest to be mature and professional. I have classes teaching middle aged Japanese business men who have gone from having a very self assured 35 year old teacher who has already had a successful career as a commercial pilot and is about to open his own film making company, to me, the 22 year old female college graduate. I feel like I'm a joke to them.

I'm sorry to complain to all of you, and I promise not to make a habit of this, I just got off the train today and this was all just running through my head. I just keep trying to remind myself not to take this job too seriously, because what I really came here to do was experience a new place and a new culture. Tomorrow is Saturday (I work Saturdays) but then it's my weekend and I know all of you will be excited to know that I have what I think would be considered a date on Monday evening. Yeah, see reading to the end was worth it right?! I don't really tend to do this often, but I met this man through a website called gaijinpot.com (gaijin means foreigner in Japanese). We've emailed a bit and even though he is Japanese, he's been all over the world... even to Connecticut! For those of you who are freaking out at this point about the whole online thing, don't worry I will be very careful and use common sense. So that's about it, I'll keep you guys up to date on what happens... well to a point. Thanks to those of you who've been leaving comments, I really do enjoy reading them and I suspect that I may receive a few after this post!