Finding my destiny... ✨ as a career coach?

A HUGE week: I now know what my destiny is 🔮; my book is going to take on a totally different form now (oddly thanks to my friend and therapist) 👩🏼‍💻; and the best purchase ever 🪑

Holy cheese. I had a week!

First I’d like to start off by saying, I’d like for this little newsletter-update thing to have some sort of cohesive theme that you can better predict and scan the contents of, à la Neville Medhora’s fantastic weekly “S.T.U.P.I.D” email [which stands for Swipe, Thought, Uplifting, Picture, Interesting, Drawing]. I thought about it over the week, and really haven’t come up with much… I thought like NIBS? New, Interesting, Bought, Serious? Or BISH, Bought, Interesting, Strange, Helpful…? Anyway, nothing has really stuck, so you just get this smorgasbord of updates in your inbox for the moment. Thanks for reading anyway 😬

But that’s not to say this smorgasbord of updates isn’t connected in some way. This week especially, I think they are. So let’s go in order of the updates I posted in the description. Note: this post is a bit longer than usual, but so many big things happened this week, and this blog’s mission is to be transparent about my progress, so feel free to take breaks as you go along ☕️

I know what my destiny is 🔮: Career Coach [????!!!!!]

Here it is: I’m destined to be a career coach/advisor/guide/shaman for humanities and social science folk. This is just one of many paths I think I’ve always been wanting to take but couldn’t convince the more logical part of my brain to pursue it, so I’ve just shuffled it off despite subconsciously running back to it at various points in my life.

For example, when I was digging through some files on my old old Macbook, I found a 15-page proposal I made as an undergrad for the UMD English department to revitalize the Careers section of their website. I didn’t think what they had was practical or particularly informative, and it was most certainly not pretty, so I laid out a mega plan to reorganize, rewrite, add, and beautify it. I had huge, tangible plans for the non-existent career services department. But of course, nothing happened with it because they didn’t think it was important at the time. And probably still don’t, seeing as they don’t have any page for it on their current website…

Now, at the uni I’m currently studying at in Berlin, I run a series that I started called JFKInterviews, where we run career development programming like Q&A’s with successful humanities/social science professionals, internship panels, and workshops (like in personal branding and career search). For fun I also made a whole presentation for my team to get them on board with outreach called “Ask and you shall receive: A Guide to Cold-Contacting Strangers & New Acquaintances On the Internet” and I loved spending all that time making it.

A slide from my presentation :)

In fact, I love Powerpoints. And nothing grinds my gears more than a bad one. I have a whole section of notes with an outline for a powerpoint I want to make about making a good academic presentation. For example, I recently sat in a presentation where the speaker threw up a slide that was filled with words, then the speaker nervously laughed and said, “Look I’m not going to read all of this out to you, you can read it later, but I will say…” and I was like ????? Why do you include information on a slide that you’re not going to read?? This is a common phenomenon, as I’ve sat in many presentations academic and professional alike where the speaker assumes this is some really cool, self-depreciating method of connecting with the audience, but I just don’t get it at all. That’s not what a presentation should be!

And there was another presentation at uni I had heard, where the speaker had a single slide up for ten whole minutes. That is way too long!! It was jammed with text, and no one was paying attention anymore. But there’s an easy fix — just make more slides! Stick one piece of info on each one. The flipping through to a new slide keeps people awake! Get with it, people!

Anyway maybe it is now clear this is something oddly close to my heart. And yet another little stepstone on this career path I’ve unwittingly drawn for myself, because I also happen to work at the local business school in which department??? Career Services, for pete’s sake! And one project this past year I spent an absurd amount of time on was revamping the Career Guide’s headings and subheaders. And I liked it.

Not like that wasn’t enough to confirm that I should become a career advisor of some sorts, my idea for Critiqualia (hmm, long story short, a semi-academic project I had in mind to develop for ages now), has now transformed into a resource hub and job board for humanities & social science-background folk.

Sometimes you just gotta face the music, as they say. I should stop trying to escape my fate.

My Japanese book might not end up being a book. Holy crap, what??!

Ok, so ever since I had the idea to write this book about Japanese, I have heard without fail the question, ‘Why not make an app instead?” or “Why not make an online course instead?” And every time it just blows my brain. Now, there are many reasons why these questions have irritated me, but I learned this week, it has all come down to serious misunderstanding about why I’m writing this thing in the first place.

A quick recap. I’ve been on this journey with this book for a few years now, and it has become a personal source of torture as well as well of immense, boundless passion. The idea of publishing a book is a lifetime goal of mine, but it’s also extremely terrifying. It’s permanence, it’s physicalness, they are the appeals; but they also make every word I write feel heavier and more significant than perhaps they should. But that is the nature of a book, and it’s something I respect greatly. So naturally this is not a task I’ve taken on lightly, and as such, when it is questions à la “Why not make an app?”, I get really irritated.

And I got really irritated again this past Thursday, when a very good friend of mine sent me a message asking me if I had considered creating an online course alongside my book.

I saw the message and felt sick to my stomach. Lord, here we go again. I don’t want to be Duolingo for pete’s sake! was what I immediately thought.

Now if you read my friend’s question as just an innocent, normal question, well, bingo, that’s how a normal person should have interpreted it. I did not.

I asked her why she asked. She said she had seen something on Twitter about creating an online course for passive income. I said okay, and tried to forget about it.

But I stayed irritated about it for hours.

And this time I thought, why the heck am I so irritated? Come on, your friend knows you. She’s asking you a simple, normal question. She doesn’t think you’re an idiot or question your methods. So why the hell are you so irritated?

I pondered this for hours because I couldn’t shake the grouchy feeling. Then I put the proverbial shoe on the other foot. Ok, so why don’t I make some online version thing?

Then it smacked me in the face. Right, square in the face. Why don’t I make a custom, badass website. Why not make it look GORGEOUS? Holy. Shit. Are you not about to do a web dev bootcamp thing, you idiot?????

My brain immediately went snap-crackle-pop and I felt like I had found the holy grail or something. It was so painfully f**king obvious, it was so clear that that was what I was meant to do, that it was the perfect culmination of everything I’d been working towards, what I love about websites and learning and teaching and languages, just … Jesus. And it would be entirely my own way.

So I’ve got an extra spring in my step. I can already see how it would look online. My brain is absolutely buzzing. This is something my therapist notices right when I walk in his office on Friday morning, and there I tell him why I’m so excited, the whole story about my friend’s question. And he explains that my friend’s question was indeed innocent, then proceeds to ask me the following question, “So why are you writing a book?” and I felt really stung about it again somehow.

As I attempted to answer, I actually ended up with the best and more earnest explanation I’ve ever had, and one that I’ve never been able to quite translate into my book introduction, because of my fears about the medium (and a whole host of other hibgab hangups I have).

So, this is how it went (my therapist is German so I explained all this in relatively simple and probably broken-ass German but he got the gist, and what follows here is the best to my memory original flow and order of my responses):

["Why are you writing a book?"]

When I first moved to Japan, I could hardly speak Japanese. I cried pretty much every day because I couldn't understand anything around me and I couldn't express myself at all, despite the classes I had taken before in the US and during my study abroad in Kobe. I couldn't understand why I wasn't getting it. I didn't know at the time how to learn – I think most people don't know how they learn. They just think, I'll take a course. I'll listen to something. I'll write something. Then boom,  I'll learn it, that's learning. And that's what I tried in Japan, and it wasn't working. I'm not the type to just live in Japan without knowing Japanese, so not knowing frustrated me so much. There are in fact people who live in Japan without knowing any Japanese, but I'm not that type of person.

[Here my therapist interjects and asks, "Can't people speak English there?"]

No, no. Very limited English, if at all.

["Like the French people in France? They speak French, you must speak French, kind of thing?"]

Yeah, exactly.

Anyway, I didn't want to be that person. I knew that there had to be a way for me to learn, because I couldn't accept anything else.

It was through my experience teaching, teaching English to these Japanese people, while I was trying to learn Japanese and was living in Japan, that really made things click in my head. That I finally started getting it. They didn't know how to learn English. They were doing exactly what I was doing, writing words down and going through word lists and taking a class, but they weren't making any real progress. They weren't really learning. And most people don't know how they learn. I definitely didn't. But at the time I could see why my students weren't learning and where their mistakes were coming from. How the differences in the way they were thinking about sentences and making them was fundamentally different from how I was, and I had to, as their teacher, think of some ways to explain why it was like that, and how to change the way they thought about their sentences so that they came out more English-y. And this going back and forth between the languages, breaking stuff down and putting it back together and explaining it, is what finally gave me some clarity about Japanese.

Then I realized, all that stuff I had read before in the textbooks or learned in my classes, it was just really poorly explained. The phrases were too long, too polite, too complicated. They were stuffy, and the content wasn't interesting to go through. And through my work and studying and living in Japan, being really aware of my surroundings, I was realizing that in some ways, actually, Japanese can be a lot easier than other languages, even English. Especially when it comes to everyday stuff. And all that long, polite, complicated stuff in the textbooks and other resources I had was not necessary in my everyday. I had never used it, and it was why I was so frustrated and confused every time I went out! And no one told me that, it wasn't written anywhere.

And these experiences helped me learn, figure out how to learn… like I know how to learn new things now, I know what I need to do to get good at something and I know what's wrong when I'm not or "can't." So I want people to realize that it's not about what you're learning, like Japanese,

["Which seems to be the hardest language of them all, right?"]

Yeah, that it is more about the explanation, how something is explained to you, how you think about and approach something, how you learn. And I also think Japanese is super cool and fun, and that's why I wanted to write this book, I want to give people hope that they can learn it, but also want them to see how cool and fun and interesting it is, I mean how all languages are really, and to enjoy Japanese for what it is.

[Then it came back to the first question, why I was so bothered about the app/online course thing: “Why a book?”]

Well, I think people have this idea that you should, or that the only way really to learn a language is interactively, like how an app works, where you click on something and something happens and it's more, active per se. Which yeah, it's nice, but people use Duolingo all day long and still end up not being able to speak whatever language they're studying. Because it's more than that. It comes down to how one learns, which most people don't really know, they just think they know. And I suppose they have become used to the way things are in textbooks, where there's a rule for grammar or a list of words, then some exercises, and that's it. But then, to me, it comes back to explanations, how one is showed or taught something. Like I read a really great blog on copywriting, and another now for German, where the explanations are just amazing. They change the way you think. I'm always looking for good explanations of stuff, actually, and aspriing to write in that way, because I know that's the trick. And the typical way things are taught just kind of sucks. "Here's the thing, here's the rule, now use it." So maybe people just automatically think "book = shitty, boring explanations" or "explanation for language = lame and old-fashioned", which I totally get. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and I'm definitely not writing my explanations for Japanese like that. What I mean is, it's less the medium, it's what's on/in it. And people have a lot of misconceptions about learning and their ability to learn something, which I feel is my personal mission to quash. 

When it comes to books, the physical things, I just like them. I like their permanence. I want to leave something behind. So I like books and not a fast, quickly depreciating app. No matter what this Japanese project ends up being, I'm going to publish a physical book. But when people suggest to me oh an online course would be so much better than or an app would be better than, I just, can't agree with that at face value.

And this whole conversation changed everything.

I love a good explanation for something. People need explanations, actually, otherwise they don’t do something or don’t do it right. A wild example, you know how on airplanes they always tell you to life the covers on the windows for landing? I always thought it was an annoying request. Turns out, it’s in case an emergency happens:

“From a safety standpoint, open shades help improve situational awareness,” says a rep from the Flight Safety Foundation. “For example, during an emergency evacuation, flight attendants or passengers need to be able to see outside to determine whether it's safe to open and use an emergency exit. Source

So now I get it, and won’t complain to myself about having to open it even when it’s super sunny and it hurts my eyes.

Same pertains to everything else. And a good explanation can simply change how you understand something fundamentally, like when it comes to language learning or even just accepting cookies on a website, an annoying yet inescapable part of browsing the web in the EU. Take now for example this really cute explanation for cookies I saw on a French website, which I loosely translated from my stagnating memory:

Blah blah blah Cookie! Fine, ok, these cookies are neither sweet, chocolatey, nor melty. But they allow us to get to know you better and suggest you content that you would love. And that, that is worth all the cookies in the world.

After I read that unique little explainer, I clicked “Ok pour moi” (Fine for me!). Just because I appreciated the explanation.

In fact, I love good explanations so much, I am this close to buying a domain name to later stick a whole collection of things “gut erklärt” (German for “well-explained”). People — do I do it?? 🤔

So, in the end, now the idea is to make the most beautiful, amazing, practical Japanese-learning website ever, which will also have a printed, physical version. I seriously feel like a fucking genius right now. And please for your own sake, don’t tell me you told me so 😜.

An excellent *purchase*: a better office chair! 🪑

So I’ve had a crappy office chair for a while now (about two years). I bought it deep pandemic for 5 euro off the internet and while it was an improvement from the standard chair in my apartment, it still sucked. I recently realized the chairs at my work were a lot nicer, and I emailed the building if they had any extra, old chairs in storage they were willing to sell to me. Happens that they did! And now I am the proud owner of a chair that doesn’t hurt my butt, keeps my back straight, and looks nice. I’m actually happy to sit in front of my computer all day now that I have it. Everyone, don’t suffer an uncomfortable work chair!! It’s not worth it.

Also, I guess this goes back to the little presentation I made before: “Ask and you shall receive” 😏

Week 4 Wrap-Up

I have a bit more I wanted to say, but I think that’s enough for now… plus, I’m sure I’ll have more to share after week two of my bootcamp (P.S. I chose this bootcamp specifically because I like how they explain things, see how it’s all connected!?!). But now it’s time to go and enjoy a bit of this lovely, sunny Sunday ☀️.

If you’ve made it through to the end of this post, thank you sincerely, and also:

Do you know of any websites or books that have just absolutely baller explanations for stuff, especially things you thought were hard, complicated, or impossible? I’d love to check them out and start collecting for that potential domain name 😬

Please share in the comments, and have a lovely lovely week!! ✨ And subscribe to this newsletter if you already haven’t :)

~Deanna

P.S. A heartfelt thank you to Magdalena, the friend who asked me the question that started this week’s huge, mega-revelation chain of reaction. 💞