Annie's Excursions

Most ALTs will experience a phenomenon called “deskwarming” at some point in their career, but to different degrees. Deskwarming is essentially when you’re required to go to work (mostly because Japanese contracts are stiff), even though you may not actually have anything to do, so you either have to sit there or keep yourself killing time, from the time you’re supposed to report to work to when you’re allowed to leave. Some people love it, some people hate it, but personally, as long as it’s just a little bit, I’m fine with it. My contract states I have to be at work from 8-4, so I report to work at 8 and always leave at 4, a total of 7 working hours and an hour lunch break (though when I report to Town Hall for work, it’s a 8:45-4:45 because they only open at 8:45). Personally on a given regular school-work day, I usually have 1-2 hours after I arrive to chill before classes, and then I have a similar 1-2 hours before I leave. I think that’s just about right, from doing some personal check in things in the morning, to winding down before I go home while chatting with my coworkers.

However, when the kids don’t have school, I still have to “go in to work”, and I don’t get regular vacation like the teachers do. Since I’m technically a government employee, the only vacation days I get off are public holidays, and 20 days per contract year of paid time off (gotta use those wisely!). Even when I don’t have classes, I have to go in to my regular school hours and do whatever for 8 hours. When schools are closed but I have “work”, I go in to the Board of Education at Town Hall. I’m pretty thankful I have access to a computer at school, so I can use the internet to do whatever at the minimum, since I don’t use a pocket wifi anymore (BoE is a different story though…I haven’t asked to use a computer there yet and just been dealing with offline tools to keep busy on my iPad).

Anyway, deskwarming time is relatively common, so it’s best to make the most of all of this free time by working on some personal projects. Now that winter break is here and the kids are out but I’m not, I’ve got plenty of time to kill during my workdays. Here’s what I’ve been up to/some ideas I’ve had:

• Making plans: Just doing some quick google searches or going through YouTube channels I’m subscribed to for potential future travel plans (domestic, and international). Researching the area for cool potential food spots on Google Maps and bookmarking them.
• Walking around school: I sometimes make a few laps around the school, making my way through all four floors and entering empty classrooms if it doesn’t look suspicious. It’s a good way to get some exercise in instead of sitting all day, and especially helpful after lunch for a post-meal digestion walk. I also like to sometimes look at the student work posted outside the classrooms. Recently I walk a few laps in an empty classroom while listening to a podcast.
• Attempting to prep for work / lesson plan: If I’m just chilling before/after classes on a work day, there are probably some lesson prep things I can do, such as making worksheets, organizing flash cards, making/editing my cultural PowerPoints, and changing my Kahoot quizzes.
• Organize materials in my/JTE’s desk: Winter is the season for deep cleaning here, and since my JTE is leaving next school year, it’s a good way to exert some organizational creativity while killing time to see what lesson goods she’s stocked up over the past year.
• Write stories / my blog: One of my hobbies is writing, which is a main reason I started my blog(s). While I’m usually in somewhat of a Writer’s Block, I do enjoy creative writing and I’m trying to get back into it by using my free time to write at least some standalone short stories. Other than that, I’m updating either of my blogs (boba, or this one!). My goal for this Japan blog is to upload a post at least once a week (Mondays JST for now!), and so other than my “~ Diaries” I’m stockpiling other daily life posts (like this one!). Then I just schedule them to be released 🙂
• Read: One of the few things I had in my rotation when I was deskwarming at the BoE when I first got here was reading a web novel. I honestly just searched up “free web novel” on the internet, found a website, and chose one from the first page that sounded interesting. It had around 600+ chapters in it, and I just started it because I was bored. The writing isn’t amazing, but I kept reading it and eventually got invested, and it’s helpful for being kept entertained, I guess. I also downloaded some pdfs/scanned books for some more academic Japanese studies/review, so I’m also going through some basic brushing up on my written Japanese. I’m also thinking about downloading actual better books onto my iPad for when that runs out. I guess I could try to download some videos, but I feel weird just casually watching videos at a workplace, so I’m holding back on that.
• Learn a new skill: For someone who likes studying languages, I really should brush up on that and download some materials other than Japanese for offline studying, or actually use my school time to search up some online materials. Since I have a Korea trip coming up soon, although short, I should also brush up on that too. I did try to pick up coding at school, and finished a basic Python and JavaScript course on CodeAcademy, use looking for free coding resources. I always heard coding was a good skill to pick up, and since I don’t actually have any useful hard skills, I thought I’d give it a try. The basic courses were easy enough, but once I tried doing the beginner JavaScript React courses, I had almost no idea what was happening..so I kind of lost interest, but I’m trying to get back into it.
• Study Japanese: See above, ha! Since I’m in Japan with a relatively high comprehension, I don’t need to super actively study it, but with a bunch of free time, I figure I should make my not-so-perfect Japanese better, and study some more grammar and kanji, since my kanji skills are pretty weak. I may or may not aim for the JLPT, and if I do, probably N2 to start…?
• JET Program Things: Over winter break we had to watch a skill development video, and to kill time, I watched both (though they were essentially the same…?) and took notes too the first time around. There’s a day in January I thinkwhen we have to attend a live Zoom conference, so that’s half a day gone and killed!
• Post JET plans: I was also doing some potential grad school research, since JET isn’t a permanent position, and I really need to consider what I’m going to do after I move on. I don’t entirely want to think about the future quite yet though, but I’m going to be a responsible adult and not put myself in a stressful situation later.

As a side note, contracts and hours and leniency will vary per person, situation, contracting organization, etc. For example, in the town over the new ALT in my cohort doesn’t have to deskwarm because the previous ALT broke contract and asked his BoE to not deskwarm over school holidays. I guess they (maybe reluctantly?) agreed, and now every ALT after him in that town doesn’t have to deskwarm and take nenkyuu on school vacation. Must be nice.

One time I was at school helping out my friend with miscellaneous tasks, and I was saying how I’m not really doing anything except killing time on deskwarming days. I mentioned how it’d be nice to “telework”, and she went, Oh I can work from home, maybe you can too!, and asked the vice principal for me. I had little hope for the prospect, but was very thankful she was willing to ask on my behalf since I would never on my own (since that seems a bit stuck-up in a way?). I heard in some places VPs will allow ALTs to go home early if they’re being nice or whatever (though I haven’t experienced that unforuntately), which is just another example of a specific type of power VPs have here. Anyway, he ended up calling my BoE to ask (which I knew wasn’t going to end well…), and essentially there were two reasonings for why I can’t he reported back on. The first, the more “official” one, is that my contract is different than my regular teacher-friend, and that when she works remotely, she’s actually working and has to log her hours and what she’s doing. The other, more underlying or unspoken one, is that everyone knows I’m just killing time and doing whatever at school. If I’m just going to be fooling off at home too, I might as well report in to school and make it seem like I’m doing something worthwhile with my time and tax money. Big oof, but it was what I expected, and it’s not like it changes anything much for my situation.