I can tell when I've set myself up for failure, though typically only after it's too late to do anything about it. I charge through most things with a sort of blind faith and optimism in my abilities- and am always disappointed one way or another. This time it's classes. I championed through the first two weeks. Almost. It's not that my classes are especially HARD - perhaps a little bookish and there is a lot of homework involved, but I'm not particularly afraid of reading and writing a lot, if I can somehow twist the shape of the subject into something palatable to me. Like a nacho cheese pretzel, perhaps.
No, the problem herein lies in my "easy" class. The class is 80 minutes long and I spend 65 of those minutes staring at my desk doing nothing but holding up half of an awkward conversation with my work partner because the work is too easy for both of us. What takes most people in the class the full 5 to 10 minutes we're alloted to practice, my partner and I do in 30 seconds and then just sit there staring at the desk. "Weekend...?" "Tiring." "Heh, yeah. I'm tired, too." "Yeah, heh, tired." "...." - And we get to repeat this exercise in mental face palming, locked in place and forced against our will to interact every couple minutes. My conversation partner is extremely nice and I'm glad she knows the material as well as I do... But I'm sure she's as mind-numbingly bored as I am in class. Nonetheless, I've discovered that more than my harder classes where there is a lot more pressure for me to perform, the class I dread going to most is this one. I also hate the homework assignments which read something like "Approach a random Japanese person and ask them what their favourite kanji is!" or "Go to a salon and get your hair done, make sure you take before and after pictures and get a receipt!" or "Go to a public bathhouse! Make sure you get a receipt!" - the list goes on in a similar vein. The major caveat here is that I have absolutely zero desire to do any of these things. I wouldn't do most of these things in my own country, even. The only one I consider even remotely normal and something I might actually do as a functional human being is the salon one - except that, honestly, I don't trust the "cheaper" Japanese salons (quotes because even the cheapest haircut seems to cost around 30 dollars) to do my hair right, because it's a very different texture than Japanese hair. My hair is so much flatter and thinner. I might trust a more upscale salon in a more international area where the hair dressers have likely had a variety of clientele -- but that would take the price somewhere from the typical "expensive" haircut straight on up to somewhere past astronomical. I should note though that I don't even trust most salons in my own country. I have a specific stylist I see, even. If it's that hard to coax what I want out of a hairdresser in my own country, speaking my native language, I am straight up terrified of what will happen to my hair in Japan, with Japanese hairdressers who are used to Asian hair, who I won't be able to communicate completely fluently with.
So, uhm. I haven't done my homework, yet. : / I've even looked at the syllabus and found ways to work it out so that I won't have to do some of these "cultural experience" assignments and still get an A in the class. That's how badly I hate the prospect of them and how much I long to avoid them.
TL;DR: I am completely incapable of most forms of random, unplanned, or forced social interaction without feeling like I am crumpling up and melting in acid internally from anxiety and a general sense of "do not want."
