Recognition

After 3 and a half months worth of assistant English teaching at all three of my junior high schools, most of the students remember my name and don't act up as much in class anymore. That is my achievement, getting through tough times with patience, persistence and not reacting to anything. My teachers are slowly giving me more responsibility too. But I still need to be patient. At the moment I have a mild cold which is in my throat mostly. Very annoying. I am praying to get better quickly but the weather is getting colder by the day. I hope I can manage well, living in sub zero temperatures for the first time...

All in all, my life in Japan is average. It would be far better if only my family or at least my mother were here. I think actually she could live here with me just fine, I get more money here than I did in my own country. It's frustrating. Many of the comparisons in lifestyle between NZ and Japan are frustrating. Frustration is a problem for me, it always has been. That's the thing with being Autistic, controlling your emotions is amazingly taxing at times. Even I, on the higher functioning end if the spectrum, even I often get looks from people due to loudly overreacting to something. I feel my reaction is just normal, expressing feeling or emotion but other people tell me to calm down. That's when I need to do damage control and tell them I'm part Latin or say I'm just joking. It usually doesn't work, but they just think I'm weird or highly strung. Here in Japan usually nobody says anything, at least not to your face. But they will spread info about you throughout the whole town so I need to be especially vigilant. They will judge foreigners in general by my behaviour, so it's a big responsibility. I will be writing emails about Japan to people I know, and I will paste them on my blog and maybe add extra, to save writing a lot more than I need to. I suppose I better start writing my journal too... Hmm there's a lot to do.