The Perfect Spare
When I applied for the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program in 2009, I feel that I was the perfect applicant. I spoke Japanese, I had studied it for at least 5 years by then, including a half-year study abroad in Japan. I even had English teaching qualifications, fancy that! None (well, pretty much) of the ALTs that I met here had anything like that, besides maybe one or two linguists. Anyway, I truly felt I was the perfect candidate. I was someone that they could definitely rely on to adapt well to life in Japan, rural or otherwise, and also give the English teaching part a good go too.
Which made me the perfect spare.
Think about it. If someone with less Japan or English teaching qualifications were to drop out, that would make me the perfect replacement. It’d be a no-brainer. And that’s exactly what happened. I was declined on the first go. I only ended up going when my predecessor gave up midway through their contract (at least I assume so). And what did they do? Called up the perfect spare. It was the only time before and (even) after that they had a New Zealander (that could be saying something else though). So I was an anomaly. But guess what, they were right. I’m still here. Too good for the All Stars, but just right as the perfect spare. Go figure.