I guess it helps you become a more organized space-efficient person for the rest of your life?
My place in Japan was shitty, but it wasn't small. Was like living room + bedroom + small hall kitchen & bathroom. The bed in the bedroom was pretty gross and the carpet smelled funky so I just threw down a tatami in the living room and a small tv and just lived in one room space tho.
My apartment had two rooms, a kitchen, and then separate bathroom/toilet spaces. The size wasn't bad- the condition, however, was another story, lol. Was your place a designated long-term "JET residence?" Mine had been used for that going back to at least the early 90's and there was stuff from the previous occupants all over the place. I kind of just lived in it as-is at first, pretty much in just the living (tatami) room and used the other room as a giant walk-in closet. Then my parents came to visit and were horrified at the condition of some of the spaces. My dad spent like half a day cleaning the shower room out- it was orange before he got there and I thought that was the color- turns out it was white.
Then I added some newer furniture, appliances, put up blinds, closet hanging rods, etc. and made it way more livable.
When I got married and my wife moved in, we spent a long time cleaning out the place and turned the other room into a bedroom with futon bed frames. There was a big wall-spanning closet in one room that was pretty deep and I kept pulling stuff out from the different people who lived there. Just the most random shit you could think of- no idea why nobody else ever bothered to clean it out before we did. The ALT desks in the teachers' rooms were the same way.
