Big update! there's clarity on how the town feels about my potential options. before talking about that, i suppose i should go over my main options once again, so that there's no confusion.

option 1 is ending JET after my current term, ie. in august 2023. option 2 is extending my contract for another year, ie. until august 2024. option 3 is breaking my contract in the middle, ie. around march 2024 or later. in terms of inconvenience, option 3 would be the worst, because it means that at least one school would be completely without a foreign english teacher for a few months, and that 2 other schools would have one less teacher around for english classes.

let me show you my preferences vs. the town's preferences. hope i remember enough HTML to generate a table for this.

option	ranking (mine)	ranking (the town's)
1 (end in aug 2023)	2	3
2 (end in aug 2024)	3	1
3 (end in mar 2024)	1	2

i had to look it up, but at least i got it right. the problem is that none of our choices align. my supervisor says that march/april is the busy period for the town (financial year-end), and they really don't want to increase their workload by having to get a new JET settled in during that time. separately, the PA side told me that the town could request for a JET and if they did so, they would very likely get one in april. but to do so or not would really be up to them. based on our conversation, it's clear that they would rather be JET-less for a few months than ask for an early arrival JET. my supervisor also mentioned that the powers that be would like me to continue in this role for as long as possible, hence their ranking order with soonest departure being ranked least favourably. the rationale might be because i'm low-maintenance and/or a great english teacher. both of those probably contribute to their decision, but i'll choose to believe that it's more of the latter.

for me, my logic is that i'll be too old by august 2024. granted that it's only 5 months away from march, but it's still the difference between "35 and a half", and "pushing 36". i was telling them that had i been 5 years younger, i would have gladly stayed for the full term. think about it - i'm 33 now. if i finish JET in august 2023, i'd be close to 35. and if i stay all the way until august 2024, i'd be 2 months away from my 36th birthday! also, out of the 12 classes i teach (ok, really 10 because i see the primary 1 and 2 kids only once or twice a term and that's too little to count), i feel strong-ish emotional attachment to only 2, maybe 3 of them. all my other classes could be taken away and i'd be happy to let them go...as long as they don't touch those 2 or 3 classes. what i guess i'm trying to say is, there are fewer things that bring me joy as far as work is concerned. so that makes me think it's time to plan my exit.

knowing the truth, unpleasant or different from your ideal scenario as it may be, is vital for good planning. based on the ranking of choices, the best choice is to end in march 2024 as it's none of our worst choices. i was also surprised that the town was very open to the idea of me breaking contract. i think it helped that i was very upfront with my plans, instead of going round in circles or informing them at the last minute. they've said that they don't need a reply so soon. the next time we talk about this will most likely be during the next renewal negotiation, this december. with that in mind, i have to figure out what to do before then.

today was my last attempt at nikumiso for a while, seeing as my miso ran out. i used about a 1:4 miso to mince ratio, and thickened it with cornstarch slurry. great texture, somewhat lacking in flavour. i think 30-50% miso might be the sweet spot. i'll try it again eventually, once i've run out of things to cook or if the craving strikes.

-random thought of the day: Put my own interests first.-

Nikumiso attempt 2 went the opposite of attempt 1 - the miso flavour is a little too weak and the texture is off. it's not so much a meat sauce as it is a seasoned mince now. but it's not a total loss; it still goes well with rice. i think i'm seeing why some recipes included a thickener, like cornstarch slurry. something to try on attempt 3, then.

had a tough conversation with my supervisor just now before coming home, about the end of my JET term. based on how the conversation went, i get the impression that they'd rather i not recontract than break contract halfway. my JET friend who's a PA (prefectural advisor) said that breaking contract is normal, and that the board of education would probably want to retain me for longer instead of taking a risk on a new JET whom they don't know much about. i hope they think that way too. in the event that i do have to choose only between ending in august 2023 vs august 2024, there's no doubt at all in my mind that i will choose the earlier date.

my choice is in part due to the tint fading from my glasses, so to speak. i enjoy interacting with the secondary school kids, not so much the primary school ones this school year. but even then, teaching the same content year in year out is dulling my mind. i could actually see myself living in this town long-term, but doing something different instead of teaching. of course, i will miss the kids (again, not so much in primary school), but the additional year of time lost won't be worth it.

i was just thinking on the commute to work this morning, what would i choose to do if i had a billion dollars? it doesn't have to be a billion exactly, but just more money than i could ever finish spending. my answer is that i'd probably stop working! i've heard of million/billionaires who still work every day due to their sheer love of their jobs. while i hope that i'll find such a job in the future, the current plan (if i had that much money) would be to just live life normally.

strange thing today, i had a headache which got quite bad (by my standards) towards the end of the school day. i wonder if it's because of dehydration or just my body reacting to the weather getting hotter. well, as long as it's not a symptom of an underlying medical condition, i figure i'll be ok.

-random thought of the day: Taking more leave this week!-

Today might be the first time i've taken leave on a school day. but my absence won't affect the kids, because there's no english class scheduled today! the teacher has a workshop in kochi city, and while i think i'm capable of taking classes solo in today's school, i won't say no to a break. same for next monday - more workshops for the teachers, but i'm only taking half a day off then.

school has been ok...some problematic kids (one, really), which is to be expected, but nothing i can't handle. it's not like bad-bad, just some kids who have no interest in english. or school as a whole, actually. this one particular kid sleeps in basically every class except PE. maybe it's the puberty making him tired, i don't know. but well, i learned a long time ago not to take such things personally. people are different, and it's ok if others don't like the same things as you, or don't prioritize things in the same way.

i've also been thinking about future plans, probably as a result of having too much time on my hands. previously, i'd said that australia would be nice, but now i'm also thinking of giving IP a shot in japan. somehow, i feel like i'm not finished with japan yet. but that might also be the sense of comfort that i have here now. previously, the choice to leave singapore was easily made - both push and pull factors were  strongly present. but here...there's only a small pull factor to australia, and almost no push factor from japan except language and potential harsh working conditions. maybe the push will become stronger when i transition into something less brainless, for lack of a better word.

wrote the above 3 paragraphs on thursday, but didn't get around to publishing them. since then, there has been one significant incident, in that i raised my voice at a kid in school for the first time. it wasn't to do with anything academic, that kid was just doing something to me that was annoying and i had cautioned him to stop before. for more context, this is a primary school kid. a part of me thinks that i may have been too harsh, but i also think that kids that age sometimes need a sharp shock to realize that people aren't joking. all the more so in this case because of the communication barrier. i was just thinking, i'm ok with not being close to all grades. can't win them all.

feeling mild worry about the curriculum writing sideline thing. i've made material for a total of 9 videos in the past 3 weeks, and i have another month to get the remaining 13 videos done. granted that 6 of those 13 are really trivial, so maybe it isn't as bad as it seems.

recently i've found that i'm worrying a lot more than i usually do, in both breadth (number of things i worry about) and depth (how much i worry about specific things). i do remind myself to live in the moment and experience things here, but there's that nagging feeling that i should start on some things, that i should be planning way ahead, and worst, that i may have missed the boat for some things already. i think a lot of these worries are due to the unpredictability of one's lifespan. if i knew that i was going to live till say, age 88, i could plan my resources better. or if i knew i was only going to live until age 40, i would probably be freer with my money - i won't need that much of it due to the shorter time. extension: i also think that a lot of our stress comes from the limited time we have on earth, so we try to set ourselves up for the longest-possible period of comfort. does that make sense? i think i'm rambling here. probably too much energy and nothing productive to do with it. makes me think that i should start looking into mindfulness practice, or meditation, or something along that line.

-random thought of the day: Where will I be 2 years from now?-

Pig's trotters in vinegar didn't turn out that good, and that was largely due to my imperfect memory. you know how sometimes you will remember the main part of something, but get the details wrong? like maybe you'll remember that a certain friend was at a specific event, when that friend was actually elsewhere at the time or something like that. so that sort of happened to me, but for this recipe. i mistakenly remembered that there was star anise in it, when the star anise was actually for lor bak, or stewed meat. to make things worse, i added too much star anise. worst of all, i don't even like its flavour! but i added it in part due to (mistaken) tradition, and in part because it's supposed to enhance the flavour of meat. well, lesson learnt there.

another miss was that i didn't manage to get the correct type of vinegar (chinese sweet black vinegar), so i substituted with regular japanese black vinegar and sugar. not ideal, but it's close enough. funny how i never ever thought of making the dish in singapore, because it's not hard to find, and also because i thought it would be difficult. turns out that it's quite simple - parboil the trotters in water for 5 to 10 minutes, then boil them and ginger slices in vinegar until tender. i'm sure the professional sellers will add other spices, but the essence of the dish comes down to those 3 ingredients. now the next question is, what do i do with the vinegar stock after i've finished the trotters? i currently have boiled eggs in there (again, not traditional). maybe i'll box it up and refrigerate/freeze until i can replenish the meat. or i might just end up having it over plain rice. it actually works really well in that application.

i also started on the curriculum writing job. sent in my first 2 drafts today. they're quoting 8 curriculum hours for 24 videos' worth of material. that's a strange unit of measure that they use. i guess it's to gauge how long a student should spend on a concept. those 2 drafts took me half a morning, and they were for relatively easy concepts too! my JET friend said that it gets easier with time, so maybe i'll be breezing through them after a few rounds of feedback. it doesn't seem too hard right now. in fact, the actual challenge is determining how deep to go.

with the end of golden week, that's the last of public holidays for a good few months. checking my calendar confirms that the next holiday is sea day, in late july. will probably figure out how to take leave as and when i can in the interim, since i need to clear 17 days' worth. i'm sure opportunities will present themselves.

-random thought of the day: Feeling not-optimal recently.-

At the risk of sounding shallow/superficial, i just want to say that it was extremely uplifting when a cute guy declared his support for me. of course, all declarations of support are welcome and make me feel good, but it was especially so when he did it. unfortunately, the cute guy in question is my supervisor's husband, so dating is completely out of the question. how this came about was that i was invited to their place for a barbeque yesterday, and it happened in the midst of conversation about my plans after JET.

yesterday's weather wouldn't immediately scream "barbeque" at me. while it was bright and sunny, it was also a little cold and windy. but hey, it's a new experience. i also got to meet other members of my supervisor's family, including her parents- and sister-in-law, as well as her younger brother, his wife, and their baby boy. interesting point: her younger brother is just 10 days older than me, and shares a birthday with one of the chemistry guys! maybe that's why she gets along so well with me, because she's used to interacting with someone around my age. or maybe it's just her outgoing character. probably both.

for the longest time, i've been wanting to make nikumiso. "niku" means "meat" in japanese, and miso is just miso. i had it for the first time during a school lunch very early on in my time here, probably more than a year ago. at that time, i had no idea what it was, except that it tasted great! i asked my colleague in charge of school lunches for the recipe recently, but she either forgot or didn't think i was being sincere about wanting it. not the first time that she didn't deliver on my requests, but oh well. so i tried making it at home, with some reference from the internet. this first attempt was ok, but could have been better. for one, i overestimated the amount of miso needed. i went in with 400g meat to 350g miso, so about a 1:1 ratio. it came out extremely salty (despite me using reduced-salt miso) and i basically tasted nothing but the miso, despite putting in garlic, ginger, onions, spring onions, and pepper. makes me think that i need to halve the amount of miso, or go even less than that. i'll do a 2 meat : 1 miso ratio next time and adjust from there. also, the one i made is thicker than the one i've had at school lunch. i diluted it with sake and mirin, but it might not have been enough. guess i should add water too. but the one redeeming quality is, it's great with rice! i can spoon some over a bowl of plain rice and make a meal out of it. just have to remind myself to drink more water because all that sodium is dehydrating.

my second cooking experiment was shortbread, which was my contribution to the barbeque. i made them matcha-flavoured, since i had leftover matcha powder from my failed matcha ondeh-ondeh experiment a while ago. it's quite easy to make, though i don't like working with solid butter. it's just harder to incorporate the ingredients! as for the taste and texture, it was pretty good. i think i cut a few too thick, and that resulted in them having underdone centres. but apart from those select few, the rest were nicely crisp and crumbly. still need to get better at baking with matcha. it seems to me that the flavour is lost after going through the oven, but that might just be my taste buds. everyone else was pretty complimentary, so i'm relieved by that. so far, i think my go-to recipe is still the browned butter cookies, both for taste and ease of execution. only downside is that it requires a bit more ingredients and a longer lead time, but that's no issue if i'm given enough advance notice.

think i'll stop here for now. still trying to sort some stuff out in my head, and i'll update when i have something concrete. plans for the remainder of golden week include a bike ride, vacuuming, and trying to recreate pig's trotters in vinegar, because they were available for cheap at the supermarket and i picked them up on a whim. that was before i considered that they don't have the standard chinese black vinegar or dark soy sauce here, but i think i managed to get substitutes. well, i'm not expecting it to be authentic, but it would be nice if i could get close.

-random thought of the day: Going to need the thick blanket for a while longer.-