Some More Acdemics

I've spent the last hour or so trying to figure out what a TEFL certification actually means, who has the right to give them, and whether or not it's just a racket designed to take from me the most precious thing I have (not my okane, silly, my time!).

And maybe it's just the way today feels, but after looking at all those websites and definitions and acronyms and prices and topic lists, all I want to do is take a nap. I'm not sure how this bodes. This didn't come about randomly; few things ever do.

The JET program has rearranged the budget a little, it appears. We aren't going to get any more calendars or handheld planners from them. But. They are offering partial sponsorship to 100 lucky applicants who want to get TEFL certified online. Well heck. I'll apply, at least. Another certification can't hurt my future prospects, anyway, can it?

Unless it is as mind-numbing as it in some ways promises to be, of course. I have this fear when it comes to going back to school to get certification to teach in the US once this is over - what before JET would have bored me to tears might at this time bore me to violence - I might throw things. The problem is, there will be a lot of good and valuable information which I really do need buried in there along with lots of stuff I already know because I had to pick it up on the fly as I rocketed through grammar games by the seat of my pants.

But I mean, if we come back to it, I really do want to be better. I guess it's more a question of time, since JET would pay for most of it.

But if anyone out there has any unbiased information on just what the hell TEFL is, and how it fits in with my recurrent vision of being a multi-focused teacher (I think, rather, of Mr. Webb, who taught physics, and ESL, and sat in on political studies, and lent me linguistics articles)... I mean, before I left, the Kaplan people in Kansas suggested that upon my return, I could be the EFL teacher.

Which begs the question: do I really need this piece of paper? Maybe not. Will it hurt to have it? Only the hours I spend in front of my computer (100 of them, unless I get a by for reading fast).. will it help? Maybe. I can't help but think about how these things happen, the things we pick up along the way, and how they change our futures. I only took Latin because it was the alternative, you know? It changed me, and it didn't. I was always going to be like this, maybe.

Well. First things first. Apply for grant. Then find the time. (I hear you saying, hey, what about August, what're you doing at work then anyway? But that is for another entry.)

Oh the time. Only one and a half more work days til I leave for Tokyo Orientation.