At the beginning of every school year the teachers in the city play a huge game of musical chairs, so JTEs get swapped around and are placed at different schools for seemingly random reasons. Since the school year began a few weeks ago I’ve been getting to know my new JTEs.

At the school I’m currently at (and writing this from) one of the JTEs stood out from the rest. Due to a combination of her speaking and her attitude, she didn’t really seem as Japanesey as pretty much all the other JTEs, to the point where I was sure she must have lived abroad at some point. After talking to her for a bit, it ends up that she lived in the US for a year. It all makes sense.

At first it was kind of cool to have a JTE with which it felt that we shared a common cultural thread, but that good feeling of being able to talk to someone who almost acted like they weren’t part of the borg quickly waned. You see, there are lots and lots of people in the US that I quite dislike, and I quickly realized that this particular JTE was actually one of them.

The initial cool-I-can-talk-to-you-because-you-have-a-tinge-of-home-sticking-to-you didn’t take long to turn to if-I-was-in-the-US-I-wouldn’t-give-you-the-time-of-day.

Fuck.

If you can’t tell, she’s been grating on me. I’m glad that I have 2.5 more days at this school then don’t return until five months from now.

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