Recently, I went out to Tokyo for a conference for JET program participants returning to their home countries. While I was there, I looked into a lot of the job opportunities, and came away feeling very confident about the prospect of getting a job when I get home. After all, I've got skills that can go a long way--I'm trilingual, I've got almost ten years of proven sales experience, and I'm driven to excel in whatever it is that I do.
There were a lot of workshops about different career fields, but they happened to be scheduled so that I couldn't attend all of the ones that I wanted. There were always three workshops going on in each block, and the three that I had elected to attend all happened to be offered at the same exact time. The one I actually attended was supposed to be about finance, accounting, and banking, but ended up being mostly about becoming an accountant in the UK. It wasn't the most helpful of seminars for me, regardless of how nice the presenter was.
The conference was actually held in Yokohama at the Pacifico Hotel, a mega hotel popular for business conferences. I stayed with my a friend who lives in Tokyo in the Shinjuku area, which added about an hour and a half for travel each way, but supplied me with some company for the three nights that I stayed. We had hoped to hang out a bit, but he was so swamped with work and I kept getting home so late that we didn't to hang out until the hours of night when I probably should have been sleeping. The last night, I stayed up until almost 4AM dismantling and reassembling his laptop to fix its cooling issues. All three nights, I stayed up well past my typical bedtime of 10:30 or 11.
Travel is very expensive in Japan, and while I may have only saved a net total of forty or fifty bucks by staying with a friend and walking an hour every day, I made it a point to conserve my money in other areas such as food. I ate at McDonald's for most meals, ordering mainly from the 100 yen menu. I did splurge a bit one day and got the 400 yen Miami Burger, which was a hamburger topped with tortilla chips and what I assume was supposed to be some kind of chili (but tasted eerily similar to Indian keema curry). I'm pretty sure that no such burger has ever been consumed in or near Miami.
A lot of married guys yearn for the freedom they enjoyed in their bachelor days. Every once in a while, I find myself wishing that I just had a little more free time alone, since I'd be able to get so much more done without kids crawling on me. What I find when I actually get that free time is that I don't know what to do with it. When Stef and the girls were back in the States, I didn't actually spend all my time studying. I actually spent about the same amount of time as before, but replaced family time with loaf-time. No matter how good I am at being productive while at work, I'm never nearly as productive at home or alone.
In Tokyo, I didn't feel free at all--I actually felt like the absence of my family limited my ability to have fun. Once you've experienced family life, it's hard to go back. The tempting freedom of bachelorhood is nothing more than a mirage--how soon we forget that as bachelors we longed for the companionship we now take for granted.
Returning from the conference with renewed vigor and hope for the future, I flooded Stef with optimistic talk about future plans. Like I said, I'm confident in my marketability. So it comes as somewhat of a surprise to me that just a couple days ago I had a very strong impression that I need to go back to school to become a Japanese teacher. Given my overall sentiment about the job search, I find it odd that so soon after feeling so confident about finding a job, I would not only feel a need to go grad school, but actually feel good about the idea.
So now I'm looking at masters programs in second language teaching at various schools, including my alma mater, BYU. I feel really good about continuing my Japanese education, and Stef feels good about it as well. She's been very supportive through all my career twists and turns. This time, however, it just feels right. Since I missed the application deadlines for the program, I'm going to need to apply for a job anyway. And you never know--I may find a career that I feel gives me enough opportunities to use my language skills and keep learning. I'm going to actively pursue grad school and a good job, in hopes that grad school won't be necessary. Who knows--perhaps I can find a company that will help pay for my graduate studies so that I can advance my career with them.
There's a lot to think about--but it's nice to have such supportive family, regardless of the path I choose.
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