Culture
Living and growing up in New Zealand I felt like I never really changed, I merely just became older. It wasn’t until I took a step
out of my culture and moved to Japan that I really came to understand the differences in life. Experiencing the Japanese culture
really influenced my values, I had to truly become independent..
Living in a foreign non-english speaking country can be amazing
but also immensely isolating. Being independent in the way you live your life is a really important value to uphold. It made me
become stronger mentally, but also more self aware of what I can and cannot do myself.
Values
Turbulent personality. After taking a personality test online I found my identity was 92% turbulent.
“Turbulent types are more likely to be self-conscious perfectionists, concerned about their abilities or about how others perceive them”
I couldn’t have read anything more accurate, I often find myself lost in a train of thought of how I am being perceived by others.
It’s a very anxiety inducing feeling.
I think of myself as a very inquisitive person. I like to know the motives behind people's actions. Why did they do something in a
particular way? What were they thinking before they made that decision? I always want to know everything I can about the people in
my life. I’m not sure if it's because I feel threatened by them and that I am insecure myself, or am I really just curious? I often
feel like If I can know everything about others, then I can analyse their next move.
Analysing people Isn’t always the right thing to do. I know for me it can lead to thinking about the worst possible outcome of a
situation. Reading too deep into something that really isn’t deep at all can have effects on my mood, my responses and the way I
act. I want to curb this by simply just being in the moment, taking in what’s said and appreciating the people around me more.
Decision making
While living and working in Japan I occasionally had to teach lessons to young children. Sometimes this was a lot of fun, but other
times it was very difficult.
A particular instance I remember vividly was when I had a lesson with a very troublesome 5 year old girl. It seemed like her life
goal was to cause havoc in the classroom. I always knew that I could ask for help from my manager if I needed it, but my pride was
too high to take on the criticism, I felt like I could handle it.
The ethical decision came once I realised that the negativity from
the classroom was actually spilling over into my mental well-being for the rest of the day. I was frustrated that I couldn’t get
across to this girl.
In the end I had to ask for help, I had to drop my ego and come to the realisation that asking for not help is not a sign of weakness,
it’s a sign of strength. Ultimately I was much more relieved, plus I had added knowledge of how to deal with headstrong students.
Strengths & Weaknesses
My strengths in terms of my learning and career development are perfection and creativity. I often really want to keep pushing a project
until I don’t know when to stop. I always want to tinker and try something new but then realise I don’t like said new thing. Creativity
has always been a part of me. I’m always interested in different approaches to projects or even visually doing something eccentric.
I think perfection is an obstacle to the “just in time” learning method. I need to understand and be comfortable with not knowing
everything.
I have found resistance in my past with group work. I often felt like I needed to take control of the project in order for it to be
completed on time. To use this in a productive way I tried to delegate tasks out to each member, that way we all knew what we were
doing and there was no waiting around. Something I would try now would be to try and get more creative input from everyone and take
turns at leading the project.