#preventative non-shitty vibes haha

[readysetgaikokujin]

Quick thingum about Office Relationships!

HAHA it’s not quick because I don’t know how to police my own writing. But here we go anyway! Under the cut is my opinion about ALTs fitting into the sea of coworkers they’re dashed from straight off the plane and beyond. I include a helpful list, a bit of side-eye, and my own experience. Read on!

I see a lot of ALTs who complain about office interpersonal stuff. It ranges from a very general “meh”-ness to a very real, culture-shock-like hatred of the Japan they’re in. The reasons why are varied and mostly just... people things, imo. For example....

Their coworkers ask them the same questions over and over. Their coworkers don’t talk to them at all. Their coworkers don’t seem to like them. Their coworkers go to lunch without them, or didn’t tell them about a meeting, or wanted to reschedule their welcome party until a month later, or laugh nervously too often for their tastes.

And honestly, I have to wonder how much of that is the coworkers’ fault, and how much is the ALT in question just... waiting to be liked. For no reason. While they continue to be unlikable.

Now I get it, sometimes you try super hard and it still sucks. I am NOT saying that does not happen, BECAUSE IT DOES. It’s a risk with all human relationships that we take.

That is the worst case scenario, I think, yeah? You put in all the effort, you make the cookies, you answer the questions, you pose the small talk, you try and smile and try and smile and they still don’t really like or include you.

But I’m not talking about that. I think if you’re conscious of trying, you’re most likely someone who has tried and done been trying. And I respect that. And you.

I’m pinpointing the people who complain about their coworkers and how “mindless” or “meaningless” it all is, but then wonder why they’re not talked to at the drinking party. I’m side-eyeing the people who post about how they deliberately tell their coworkers lies about small talk questions because they hate answering them. I’m talking about the people who just sit there silently seething (AT ALT-ONLY EVENTS TOO) and then wonder why a) nobody wanted to talk to them and b) why they are unhappy.

I don’t want to talk to a wet blanket, and we share a language. You have to got to acknowledge that it’s not “Japanese people don’t know how to small talk”, it’s more “I MYSELF AM WET BLANKET”.

I firmly believe that you get love back from the universe that you input into it. It takes time, and effort, and it’s sometimes scary or backfires or is stupid. That’s fine! Do it anyway!

“But Sami,” you say. “I don’t know how to.”

“It’s okay, friendo,” I tell you. “I STILL don’t know what I’m doing, because we’re all just adults bouncing about trying to be good at what we do!”

Seriously.

If you get here, and you’re nervous, here is a small list of ways to ingratiate:

1. go to the party if you can make it 2. MINGLE AT THE PARTY, this doesn’t mean drink! Just talk to people! If you haven’t noticed, they are all ASKING EACH OTHER the same bullshit small talk questions, because humans use a script until they get comfortable with each other, or until someone confident enough breaks the mold. And that is okay!! 3. give little presents. Not necessarily expensive ones, but my crew is STILL talking about when I got apple pie moonshine for them, even though I DIDN’T EVEN ATTEND THAT PARTY. 4. bake or make something, if you can do a hometown recipe they’re gonna love having an excuse to talk to you about something other than the seasons, your Japanese level, or the weather. Trust me. Give them more options on the dialogue wheel!!! 5. smile. This is harder when you have a default face that isn’t a nervous smile, I know. My anxious ass smiles all the time =_=;; Just try it out when you give the otsukaresamadesu in passing. I even throw in waves and winks. Someone’s gonna have a stroke someday, I’m sure, but it works. I’ve got a hoard of dudebros who wave back. 6. be patient. With them, with yourself, but mostly with them. You have no idea what kind of ALTs they worked with before you, and some of them might’ve left a bad taste in their mouths. They might have been made fun of for pronunciation in English. They might have been told off for trying to help them look at the schedule. They might feel like all foreigners are prickly, just like you might worry all Japanese people are quiet. Wrong. Give it time and patience. 7. get you some cheddar off of somewhere and make Red Lobster style biscuits 8. involve your JTEs in your self-intro games, so you can learn about THEM too 9. invite teachers to observe your lessons if they seem into English 10. when you get here, see if someone wants to go grab a power lunch with you, cuz it’ll be summer vacay for crying out loud!! If your supervisor doesn’t do that with you, I will drive there myself and take you to kaitenzushi omfggggg

Ten things. Ten things to try.

But the most important thing to remember is this: You are not coming here as the protagonist of your solo story, you affect everyone’s stories you come into contact with. For better, worse, or absolutely neutral. Once you stop thinking of people as accessories to your life, and people with their own thoughts and actions, the world will be your oyster. Nom nom.

It shouldn’t be that hard. But in talking with military friends, non-JET ALTs, and just expatriates living in Japan... the struggle with immediate and unfounded entitlement is REAL, fam. And it gets old for your coworkers as well as your ALTs in the prefecture. Which is why fifth years like me have gummy old jaws where we used to have toothy ones, because we got tired of gnawing down the same bone of “just stop expecting everything to be about you and how great you are omfggggggg just be nice to people”. This dog too old for that now.

Also, anecdote time, because my office is so hot that if I stop typing I will fall the hell asleep:

I came here with NO Japanese. I was memorizing “osaki ni shitsureishimasu” on the freaking airplane. I didn’t know what yakisoba was, or how to eat ramen, or even how to read most katakana yet. Imagine trying to make coworker relationships when you have to both resort to gestures and helpless looks and all that effort on both sides?? It must have been a pain in the ass for my coworkers cuz I know at times it really was for me!

So I started to take the initiative. I would bake a ton, give out some sweets every month or two, and copy the katakana from an online dictionary to say what the ingredients were. I’d ask coworkers to translate ceremony titles for me, then look up words to listen out for in the ceremony itself. I’d go to all the nomikais and nijikais even if I wasn’t drinking, and I would try to sit with new people every time at the after-party! Even if we didn’t understand each other haha. I would smile every time I got nervous, and I tried my best to absorb as much Japanese as I could in my own way.

Fast forward five years. I can speak okay now. I can listen even better. My coworkers, I feel, know who I am, and not just a “that’s Sami” knowing. But they know my hobbies, my drives, my teasing, and how I like to be teased back. They interact with me easily because I put myself out there to be interacted with, in English or Japanese, doesn’t freaking matter. They’re people looking to reach out. I can understand most everything that comes my way because most things that come my way are things I’ve experienced and beaten, like mini-bosses in my Japan RPG adventure. I can make small talk but the beautiful times are when I don’t have to anymore.

Yes I was here five years. Yes you might have shorter time than that. Yes it is still doable.

So like.... you can totally be a part of whatever school you’re going to be placed in. I say this because I hear of so many ALTs saying shit like “coming here without knowing a bit of Japanese means you’re just a burden” and “you will never be accepted as Japanese no matter what you do”. And to that I just say “well you’re right, but also thhhbbbbbbbpt.”

We all have the potential to be burdens or not, and it ain’t got much to do with language ability Sharon. And my appreciation for how Japan does things doesn’t exactly ingratiate me with Americans neither! So have a stick of gum and calm down.

There you have it. Go forth, be merry, and don’t go around expecting people to love you for being a surly, quiet, asshole who doesn’t share any of their personality with their coworkers. I get it. I had a MySpace once, it’s edgy to not care about what people think of you. But it’s fun to have relationships with people and care about what they think, even if this job is temporary.

#unsolicited advice #incoming JETs #JET programme #JET program #living in japan #coworker relationships #my school is often called the 'drama/manga' school because of the way they interact with me and each other #and its not something im watching #im actively IN IT #i believe you can be too if you have the energy for it #and if you dont?_ #don't post on fb blaming your coworkers! #not having the energy to do this stuff is JUST FINE #but putting the entire burden on relationships onto the people who you're working with is unfair and rude as fuck #they already do so much for incoming ALTs that other adult jobs in the world do not have to do and do not doooooooooooooooooo #appreciate!!!!!! it!!!!!!!! #also #this isnt shitty vibes #this is the precursor to having no shitty vibes #preventative non-shitty vibes haha

[tuesdayisfordancing]

A few loosely connected thoughts about ship wars, fandom purity culture, antis, etc. Apologies for the awkward attempt at nested bullets.

Almost everyone has natural selectivity where they remember bad things said about the stuff they like more than bad stuff said about stuff they don’t like, interpret it as harsher, etc.

Once you’ve received even one actual hate message, gotten harassed even one time, this bias to interpret someone mentioning that they dislike your fave as an ATTACK intensifies.

Ships and characters that get a lot of hate, that become Acceptable Targets(TM) are almost always also REALLY POPULAR - sometimes (often?) the most popular ship by numbers. I think, in combination with the fact that we all make judgements without full context (most people don’t actually publish the anon hate they get, and if you don’t follow someone you don’t necessarily know how they got harassed for X opinion a while back and Y seemingly innocuous comment is or seems like a renewal of that harrassment) this can lead to non shippers-of-the-thing-or-likers-of-the-character thinking that the shippers or stans just have a persecution complex. “Not everybody has to cater to you, I’m allowed to not like things, yeesh don’t take everything so personally” goes the thought. This overlooks how vastly unpleasant it is to be the Acceptable Target for nasty comments even if you have a lot of friends in the boat with you.

Something feeling like an ATTACK is not necessarily about the intensity with which dislike is expressed, but the WAY dislike is expressed. It can be hard to express why a particular statement felt like it stepped over a line, further giving the impression of overreaction.

   >  An example: the first time I saw the “Gay Ship for Gay People vs Gay Ship for Straight People” meme it fucked me up, and I’m still probably not going to do a great job of articulating all the reasons, but here goes:

   >     >  First, the particular meme I saw was one where some people clearly meant it as friendly teasing, some people clearly didn’t, and others were somewhere in between. The cumulative effect was the sensation of my middle school bullies going “haha you’re a loser, just kidding, but not really, why aren’t you laughing about my funny joke about what a fucking loser you are?”

   >     >  Fandom is overwhelmingly queer and the bits that ship same sex pairings more so. As far as I can tell there aren’t any “gay ships for straight people”. The ship I first saw this about you can tell is mostly queer with the briefest of glances around tumblr. It’s hard for me to express why this matters, when the inaccuracy isn’t the point - I think it would be a shitty meme even if a same sex ship did have a higher proportion of straight shippers than queer, but I do still feel like it matters that mostly they don’t.

   >     >  A lot of queer people are insecure about their place in the queer community, either because of youth, past experience, not fitting the Awesome Queer image, general personality, whatever. Telling anybody they’re not really queer because of what they ship is a bad move, even if you meant it as friendly ribbing or contrariwise even if you can’t imagine how a queer person could enjoy that ship.

   >     >  Man, imagine if I fucking switched it. Hell woulda rained down. So maybe it’s not such a joke?

   >     >  Having been exposed to this meme in a few other fandoms and contexts now, it doesn’t explicitly say it, but it has strong connotations of the whole “queer things are more moral and more moral things are queer” attitude that... I don’t know if it’s actually more common than it used to be or more sincere than it used to be or what, but *gestures inarticulately* Bad! Increases shame in people whose well-being you care about!

   >     >  It’s a meme making a direct claim about “the type of people who ship x” which is, in fact, in type if not intensity, an attack on the shippers rather than an expression of dislike of the ship. Even if it’s a technically neutral claim - first of all come on, it isn’t neutral around these parts, and actually I’m not sure there’s a second of all because I don’t think anyone makes these generalizations about actually neutral-in-fandom-spaces-attributes. And it’s perfectly set up to make you look dumb and oversensitive for getting defensive.

Okay, done with the example, sorry that took so long. Where the fuck was I. Oh right, onto: Tumblr Infrastructure Makes Things Worse, Verse 700. One of the ways people try to get along despite differences of opinion is delineation of spaces. Tumblr deliberately fucks with this (in order to provide other things, but still):

   >  Did you know you can no longer prevent your organizational tags from causing things to show up in the searchable tag by using 5 filler tags? So much for that. Plus even now there are people new to tumblr who don’t know about searchable tags.

   >  But even beyond that just posting something on your tumblr is more like shouting it into the crowd than it was on livejournal, because the main way people interact with your post is to reblog it. The nature of the tumblr post as something that travels makes the difference between shouting at fandom as a whole vs. shouting to your friends vs. shouting to yourself indistinct. “May a bitch not be catty and judgmental on her own blog?!” asks the tumblr user. Well, it used to be good manners to keep the cattiest and most judgmental posts friends-locked but that isn’t an option anymore - and even the unlocked livejournal post offered a little more room for a difference between a post mostly for yourself and your friends vs a post directed AT fandom as a whole. If you were aiming your post outward you deliberately indicated that. Now people kinda... take their best guess based on Vibes? And of course everyone’s more likely to take it personally when it’s their fave and more likely to roll their eyes and say “people are allowed to dislike things on their own blog” when it’s something they dislike too and also more likely to take “X character is scum” as a neutral opinion statement if that’s the General Assessment vs. an inflammatory remark if it’s not and everything is a mess.

Pretty sure I had one more thing but meh this is long already and also if I don’t post it now I’ll start to overthink shit and never post it.

#fandom

[imuybemovoko]

I die inside while dissecting Jesus music, part 3

Yep. Doing this shit again. It might take me a hot minute to write this one up, but I’ll get it done sooner or later. 

This one gets a bit more fucky than usual, so here’s a few (US) suicide hotline numbers and a rather serious trigger warning. If you’re going to have a hard time with religious trauma, weird indirect forms of suicidality, and that kind of thing, go read something more wholesome. Practice self care better than I do. For the love of all you hold holy, my thoughts are less important than your well-being. Do not read this if it’ll hurt you to do so.

National suicide prevention lifeline:  1-800-273-8255 Trevor Project lifeline: 1-866-488-7386 The Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741-741 Trans Lifeline:  1-877-565-8860

I’ve looked through my playlist trying to find a song that I don’t remember as being repetitive as fuck. There are artists out there who don’t make their shit sad and modular for church camps and I was at least somewhat into their stuff. There are also older hymns. The playlist is mostly full of that weird shitty contemporary Christian music, but somewhere nestled in between stacks of almost painfully similar songs from Hillsong (they’re not all samey, but they get pretty repetitive) is Audrey Assad’s Even Unto Death. 

At first glance, listening back, it seems to have some of the same formatting elements as the shitty modern-styled songs I’ve gotten tired of, but it gives me a very different vibe for a few reasons. First, Assad’s general body of work as I can find it on Youtube (and is also stored in my playlist) is largely older hymns, and that’s her general style. This song is, as far as I can tell, an original work, but its instrumental and melodic style is heavily influenced by the vibe that older hymns give off. Second, the bridge is more varied and interesting than that of Even So Come or Gracefully Broken. The song does, in the final bridge and in the choruses, engage in some repetition, but at a level that I find far closer to what’s typical in secular music. Third, the melody reminds me somewhat of old hymns in a way I don’t know exactly how to describe. I just imagine it with piano and SATB choir. Most modern Christian music just doesn’t land like that. But for the trauma, I’d say analyzing this song might end up being a breath of fresh air. 

But for the trauma...

Anyway. Here are the lyrics, and here is the video again. 

The song is formatted in a way that’s nearly typical of a pop song. You have a verse (in this case composed of “Jesus”, two lines of bullshit, “Jesus” again, and two more lines of bullshit), a three line chorus repeated twice, a second verse (same format), the chorus again but this time with a more personal form of address on the second time through, the bridge (which Genius divides into four distinct sections) with some repetitions of the final lines, the chorus again, and an outro that’s basically just some repetitions of lines in the chorus and then “Jesus” and the first line of bullshit from the first verse, twice. 

So let’s get into this.

First verse:

Jesus The very thought of You It fills my heart with love Jesus You burn like wildfire And I am overcome

Alright. These lines are (clearly) addressed towards Jesus. (Speaking to him directly is a thing people do.) The song has a bit of a mix of a romantic bent and something a... little bit weirder, and both are starting to become visible in this first verse. The first couplet is like... straightforward. The singer is very in love with Jesus and even thinking of him makes her feel things. She’s not quite doing a John Donne here, I don’t think, but this is a pretty strong thing and this is part of why I say there’s a romantic bent to this. The second stanza contains that “fire” imagery that’s often associated with the Christian god, most often the Holy Spirit, that serves the purpose of showing how believers’ whole beings should be consumed by God. Then she says “I am overcome”. This reads to me like one of those “this makes me feel things to a degree I don’t know what to do with” kind of things, but there’s an element of what I’ll describe as a conquest narrative here. ...Again, not quite doing a John Donne, but not not doing it either. 

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. 

Next comes the chorus, and I think it bears mention now rather than somewhere strange like I’d normally do it because this verse flows right into it. 

Lover of my soul Even unto death With my every breath I will love You

It plays through this twice. 

Gives me the same kind of vibe as Job 13:15 here.  “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.” The difference here is Assad’s song mentions love, which I guess goes beyond trust. So it’s even a bit crazier, and the “with my every breath” thing is the absolute kicker. This means she’s wanting to do literally everything, literally everything, in a way that expresses her love for Jesus. Extreme sentiments like this aren’t uncommon in song, sure, but given that we’re discussing Christianity... 

it’s not just hyperbole, they actually think this way and it’s very fucking toxic.

Also the chorus is the main reason I say this has a romantic bent. “Lover of my soul” is a fucking juicy lyric. 

Jesus You are my only hope And You, my prize shall be Jesus You are my glory now And in eternity

I think this second verse is mostly straightforward too. Literally just “Jesus is the entire source of my hope and I see him as a prize for whatever I’m doing” and “Jesus is my glory now and forever”. Glory here refers to like... honor and magnificence. In Christian parlance it refers to the condition that believers will be in after the world is overthrown by Jesus and me and all my fellow non-believing sexual deviants get hyucked straight into the eternal fire. It’s just like... shorthand for being “cleansed of sin” or whatever and living with God for eternity. I don’t know what circles Assad is active in; she might have a different take on this than I’m inclined to, but honestly given my understanding of this concept that’s primarily fueled by Protestant views and especially Evangelicalism, I’m inclined to read this as an empty threat.

Oof.

Onto the bridge. 

I notice now that the bridge has essentially two main sections. Genius says four; that’s a weird choice to me because each section they label is not doing a separate thing, but the two I see, based more on the repetition of the last two lines of each stanza and the similarity of the sentiment in the first half of each, very much are.The first chunk of it goes like this:

In my darkest hour In humiliation I will wait for You I am not forsaken

The idea here is that even in the darkest hour of their life or humiliating moments, the singer is trusting in God to get them through it and like... idk, remedy their humiliation or make it worthwhile somehow? This serves as a reminder that God hasn’t left even if it looks like he might’ve. 

Genius does a bit of a fucky-wucky here in the second section. They replace “though” with “oh”. I’m not sure how they could’ve messed this up, the video they link is literally the same lyric video that I linked, produced by Assad’s literal official artist channel, and the video shows this section the way I do below.

Though I lose my life Though my breath be taken I will wait for You I am not forsaken

This second chunk is more of the same “even if this destroys me I’ll trust you God”. Job 13:15 again, basically. Again, not hyperbole, they actually aspire to this. It’s not healthy at all. This first half of the bridge is basically just “haha I’m devoted to this relationship to the point of self-betrayal and inaction.” 

Oof.

Second half:

One thing I desire To see You in Your beauty You are my delight Yeah, You are my glory

So this third section is basically just inserting verse 2 into the bridge in slightly different words, but the role it plays here, juxtaposed so much more directly with the extreme, self-betraying devotion expressed in the first half of the bridge, is more as a declaration that Jesus is the only thing that truly matters to the singer. Like the entire vibe here is “this life doesn’t even matter to me, yeet this body and idgaf, just let me go see Jesus.” I think I mentioned in a previous post, I think another one of these depression-spiking jesus song dissections,  that this kind of mindset leads to what I’ll describe as a soft form of suicidality in which someone desires death by way of yelling at people for Jesus in places where that’s dangerous to do. If the singer’s only real desire is to see Jesus, then they’re very much at risk for this. Which prompts the question...

Is Audrey Assad okay?

You my sacrifice Oh, Your love is all consuming You are my delight Yeah, You are my glory Yeah, oh You are my glory God, yeah You are my glory Yeah

So aside from the “sacrifice” line here, which I’ll get to, this whole thing is more of the same. All-consuming love, Jesus is her delight, blah blah. The sacrifice thing refers to the crucifixion and to the framework Christianity posits by which blood needs to be spilled so that God can decide not to fucking yeet someone into an unending fire hole and that Jesus came to be the final perfect sacrifice so that no one needs to stab a goat or whatever the fuck again. 

After this there’s the chorus and the outro that’s basically just the end of the chorus and then the first two lines repeated a bit, you know, just as this last little reminder that dying is ok if it’s for Jesus. 

Which I guess is the overarching message of this song too. Dying is fun if it’s for Jesus, kids! Also let’s definitely not do a John Donne! 

I feel like I reference that poem a lot. But it goddamn fits. Like terrifyingly well. I think the reason I latched onto that poem so hard when I learned about it in my literature survey course last fall is because, minus the borderline sexual nature of Donne’s thoughts here, it maps onto my own experience very goddamn hard. I went far enough into Assad’s self-betraying devotion to God for a while there that I fantasized about dying for Jesus in a country where that’s likely. Suicide by martyrdom, if you will. 

On that note, here are the hotlines again.

National suicide prevention lifeline:  1-800-273-8255 Trevor Project lifeline: 1-866-488-7386 The Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741-741 Trans Lifeline:  1-877-565-8860

If you read this far, I guess thanks for being interested in my thoughts, and I really hope this didn’t trigger anything too serious. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I should probably go talk to my therapist about this.

#exchristian #religious trauma #christian music