The break of Winter and Being and ALT

Today Old Man Winter has broke down. I think the problem is that he is having some trouble fighting global warming. Today is mostly cloudy with a chance of showers, and in Fahrenheit, it is like 60 degrees. All of this at 8 in the morning too, so it could very well get warmer by early afternoon. I was starting to to get tired by the cold.
For the last two days I have come home and just fallen alseep. I have the wall heater on timer in my room. So my room is always nice and cozy when I come back home. I do think that living here is stressing me out a bit. I am a person that does worry a lot, even about the stupidest things. So I need at least 8 hours of sleep every night or I'll be hurting by early afternoon. Plus I have been told I don't eat right. Gwen use to tell me that too, now my Japanese tutor tells me that. I usually have a slice of bread for breakfast and then at lunch time a full lunch at the school. Dinner is usually off and on, I rarely ever cook. Every Tuesday night I do head to Gobo for the ALT dinner at Miyokos, but the other 6 nights are divided between udon(just add hot water) and maybe nights at a restaurant. If I am lucky, like I was last week, I will be invited over to a person's house to have dinner, which I always look forward too. I never invite myself over, but I thinking of starting to try a bit. I think most people here think that I am really busy all the time and don't have time for them. So I usually say something like "hey let's do dinner sometimes, where would you like to go?" Knowing full well that they have a family and almost always eat with them, so they reply by saying you should come over and dinner with their family. They are always happy to invite me, and I am happy to meet their family. I not have a deep love for food, so I am not in it for the free meal, but for the company. So I have tried this tatic twice. The first time was when I actually was interested in having a dinner with just the teacher and hoping to go to some cool restaurant, but he invited me over to eat with his family. We went to a restaurant anyways. The second time, which was this past Monday, I asked another teacher, who speaks very good English, she said that she'll look into when would be a good time to come over and have dinner with her family. She is really fun to talk too to.
Last night was an 'ok' Miyoko dinner. The food was good, as usual, but not as good as it has been before. This time there highlight was some sort of beef that looked and sort of tasted like beef jerky, but wasn't. I also enjoyed the edamame(peas in the pod), which is real sweet. There is always a dessert too, never like ice cream or cake, but sweets and okashi. The last few times we have had these huge strawberries as a dessert. They are huge, like 4 to 5 times normal size, and they are so good. They usually get gobbled up pretty quick. In the past the mikan has been the staple dessert.
Most of the other ALTs are great people. I am usually quiet and listen to stories most the time I almost never contribute anything to any discussion. Some of the ALTs I don't think I would ever be friends with if we all didn't share the same factor as being an ALT. I don't know what the JET Programme's criteria was for an ALT, but most people I have met are pretty smart and pretty activity. Nearly all the ALTs I know are looking at attending a graduate school as soon as they are done with their time here. The JET Programme states, please don't make being here into a way of putting off your future or any other future plans. Sometimes I wonder if I fall into that category. I have defenitly thought of graduate school, but never too seriously and still have yet too. I came here to grow as a person and to overcome obsticles as means of confidence building, which I greatly lack. I think the JET Programme was looking for people that can handle living on their own in a foreign culture, but also adapt to actually living in the foreign culture rather than trying to live in two cultures at the same time and spiltting yourself. There are many types of ALTs and several ways you can divide them up, but one good way to truley see the adaptablity of an ALT is by diving the ALTs among those who have completed college and have worked somewhere full time for a lengthy duration, and then there are the other ALTs who have just completed college, earning their degree in May and left for Japan in July. Those ALTs still have the mind set of a student, some have the idea that their ALT experience will be like that of when they were a study abroad student, and then others who, more painfully, have a loved one that they are leaving behind, which will make being an ALT altogether an enduring experience.
I think that some ALTs see their stay here as a study abroad program and never really detach themselves from their mother country and dive into the culture here. There is always that feeling of going 'back home' some day. Instead of thinking that your 'home is where you are right now.' As for myself, I think that I have almost bridged that gap, but I still need more time. I have only been here for a little over 5 months, and that includes the 2 and 1/2 weeks when I went back home during Winter vacation. I needed to do that because I left so suddenly back in September. As for the difference in and exchange program and being here as an ALT. Well both provide you with housing, a school, classes, and expectations or responsibilties. Housing, ok, in both cases you pay for it. As for the school, instead of being a student at just one school, your a actually given anywhere between one and 15 or so schools. As for classes, instead of sitting in them as an exchange student, you actually have to run it and provide the energy for that class. I never did a study abroad program, I actually have never lived more than a 20 minute drive from parents for my entire life before I came here. As a study aboad student you are given friends, or at least you can find a few readily in the student body, and usually with other foreign students, and they are close by, most of the time and you can see them everyday. As an ALT, you can become good friends with other ALTs, but you usually don't see them everyday and they don't live close by. You also have the whole experience of teaching as a common factor to talk about with other ALTs when you run into them. One girl once said she vowed never to talk about teaching anymore with people as that is what ALTs usually only do. Talking about teaching, the Japanese language, or the Japanese culture and customs, usually are the meat of most conversations I have had out here with other ALTs. But talking about work is usually what working people talk about. As that is what your life is outside of being a student. It is hard at times not to hang out with co-workers and in doing so not to talk about work. As for study abroad students, they'll talk about classes or the foreign culture too.
As for the differences, I think being an ALT has much more responsibility. You can't just sit in class and wear what ever you want to when ever or go to class when ever you feel like it. Plus as an ALT it can be more lonely. ALT's are spread out. It takes a lot of effort to see one another. I feel that the periods of loneliness and the responsibility to perform as teacher at the level that your school expects you too, can lead to a lot stress that a study abroad student won't usually experience. Yes a student has homework to perform, but you can only let yourself down if you fail. Here your whole class could go bad and your co-teachers may look apon you differently, and sometimes the community you live if you are not performing as an ALT should. But both situations share the stress of figuring out a foreign culture, that is the language barrier and the cultural barrier.
Well to continue on with this rant after a short break and a quick talk about a little Miyama get-together that I missed out on, I think the biggest difference between the two situations is that as an ALT one is expected to fit into their community and contriubute something. You should show up to events and take interest in the locals. However as a student at a university you can just blend in with the rest of the foreign students and be as removed from events or people as much as you want.
So in conclusion to this meandering rant, for one to take advantage of the ALT situation, one has to try to fit into the cummunity and culture to overcome the obsticles of being lonesome and being away from a comfortble culture. If an ALT does not wish to try and bridge the gap of being a study abroad student versus being an ALT, then he or she will not be taking advantage of the extensive oppurtunities that awaits them and in turn will never become comfortable being and ALT.

Ok, I have no idea why I wrote that or where it came from. Perhaps I am just tired of talking to myself and spilled my thoughts here. Plus what I just wrote probably won't make and sense to anyone, and if I were to re-read it, it probably wouldn't make and sense to me either.