One Time, One Thing:

Letters from Japan

Published by Deborah Bryan at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Deborah Bryan

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FEBRUARY 11, 2011

INTRODUCTION

A week after graduating from law school, I was—naturally!—en route to Japan to teach English at a private academy.

I knew early into law school I had no interest in becoming a lawyer. The problem was, I didn’t know what I actually did want to become. Instead of making a decision, I opted to forestall one in favor of teaching English abroad. Again.

If I laugh now to see how little changed between graduating college—following which I’d taught English in South Korea for a few months—and graduating law school, I didn’t see the similarities then. After college, after all, I’d just jumped willy-nilly on the first opportunity that presented itself. After law school, in contrast, I’d actually done my research and viewed this as part of an overall life strategy. The two were very different matters!

I found hundreds of Japanese academies searching for English teachers with the help of the online newsletter “O-Hayo, Sensei.” I sent out dozens of applications to academies willing to sponsor teachers not then living in Japan. I interviewed with several of these. In the end, I accepted a position with a small academy on the southern end of Japan’s mainland, “Honshu.”