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Not-So-Temporary Insanity
Well, first, I'm back from Chicago and installed at home with the pup once more. The trip was fun, and I'm sure I'll write about it more later, but for now, I think (getting more certain by the day) that I've decided what I'm doing with the next year. I think I'm crazy, and I think that that's alright.
When I started undergrad, I wanted to be a translator. In order to accomplish this, one of those "life plan" things that never go quite the way you expect was that I'd go to Japan for about a year right after I finished undergrad.
Flash forward seven years. For various reasons, this didn't happen, and I thought I had moved on. Two and a half weeks ago, I half-joked to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
schenker28 that it was something I could do now if I still wanted to, but I didn't really want. A week and a half after that, I said the same thing much more seriously to my mother.
Three days ago, it dawned on me that that wasn't a joke at all - I really, actually COULD go if I wanted to. I have the time, I have a job that will follow me anywhere I go that will pay enough that I could afford to live (albeit, in Japan's economy, INCREDIBLY modestly), and I have only one responsibility that can't really come with me, and multiple potential ways to handle even that problem (the Jonie pup would have to be quarantined for 180 days to come with me; I won't do that to her).
Two days ago, I started thinking that this was a damned good idea.
Yesterday, I bought a book about what this would actually entail. ("Live and Work...in Japan")
This morning, I started reading the book, and am about half way done with it now (in between doing all of the other things I had to accomplish today, like taking my car in to the shop).
At the moment, I'm rather sleep deprived and tired. So maybe I'll look back tomorrow and decide this is sheer insanity and should be aborted immediately.
I think I'm gonna shove my things in storage, pack a suit case and a couple of boxes, get my hands on a travel visa, and go live in Japan for a year. If one of those boxes contains my graduation present (a collection of basic binding equipment) I can still get my skills together to apply to NBSS next April, but instead of sitting around either doing basically nothing in Bloomington or working some mindless entry level conservation job for a year, I can go and do something totally and completely awesome that I'll probably never have another opportunity to try.
There are some dangly bits that will need to be sorted out, of course...
But I think I'm gonna do it. :)
(and yes, I'm giving the finer points a great deal more thought than this rather impulsive sounding post might suggest. I spent most of yesterday and today considering finer points. The thing is, if I really want to do this, I can't wait, things like visas take time to get. :) )
Yay?
Edit: In other news, my plans to start exercising daily as soon as I got back from Chicago have been manifestly damaged by an inexplicable but rather painful ankle injury. It's rather difficult to do most forms of aerobic exercise when your ankle throbs in pain every step after about 10 minutes of activity. Grrrr. I wish the pool was open, at least then I could swim. grrrrr.
When I started undergrad, I wanted to be a translator. In order to accomplish this, one of those "life plan" things that never go quite the way you expect was that I'd go to Japan for about a year right after I finished undergrad.
Flash forward seven years. For various reasons, this didn't happen, and I thought I had moved on. Two and a half weeks ago, I half-joked to
schenker28 that it was something I could do now if I still wanted to, but I didn't really want. A week and a half after that, I said the same thing much more seriously to my mother.Three days ago, it dawned on me that that wasn't a joke at all - I really, actually COULD go if I wanted to. I have the time, I have a job that will follow me anywhere I go that will pay enough that I could afford to live (albeit, in Japan's economy, INCREDIBLY modestly), and I have only one responsibility that can't really come with me, and multiple potential ways to handle even that problem (the Jonie pup would have to be quarantined for 180 days to come with me; I won't do that to her).
Two days ago, I started thinking that this was a damned good idea.
Yesterday, I bought a book about what this would actually entail. ("Live and Work...in Japan")
This morning, I started reading the book, and am about half way done with it now (in between doing all of the other things I had to accomplish today, like taking my car in to the shop).
At the moment, I'm rather sleep deprived and tired. So maybe I'll look back tomorrow and decide this is sheer insanity and should be aborted immediately.
I think I'm gonna shove my things in storage, pack a suit case and a couple of boxes, get my hands on a travel visa, and go live in Japan for a year. If one of those boxes contains my graduation present (a collection of basic binding equipment) I can still get my skills together to apply to NBSS next April, but instead of sitting around either doing basically nothing in Bloomington or working some mindless entry level conservation job for a year, I can go and do something totally and completely awesome that I'll probably never have another opportunity to try.
There are some dangly bits that will need to be sorted out, of course...
But I think I'm gonna do it. :)
(and yes, I'm giving the finer points a great deal more thought than this rather impulsive sounding post might suggest. I spent most of yesterday and today considering finer points. The thing is, if I really want to do this, I can't wait, things like visas take time to get. :) )
Yay?
Edit: In other news, my plans to start exercising daily as soon as I got back from Chicago have been manifestly damaged by an inexplicable but rather painful ankle injury. It's rather difficult to do most forms of aerobic exercise when your ankle throbs in pain every step after about 10 minutes of activity. Grrrr. I wish the pool was open, at least then I could swim. grrrrr.
no subject
Well, that's not something I'd have expected, but if you end up doing it, that'd be cool. Good luck. :)
Likewise, I've some friends who have been to Japan and who might be able to put you in touch with some expats there.
Did you have any ideas on where you were thinking of living in Japan?
...and did Sara give you the nifty pieces of paper from the cast party?
no subject
I think this plan would be a surprise to most people who've only met me within the last few years; it's a plan which, as I said, I gave up for a variety of reasons not worth going in to. However, it was something I talked about a lot when I was in my senior year of HS and my freshman year of college.
As to locations, I haven't fully decided yet. I'm not yet sure what I'm going to be doing about a job there, and that will have a big effect. If I get a job there for a year, then I will live where ever the job is. However, if I can find a way to justify a visa without employment (ie by being a student or figuring out a way to claim I'm there studying traditional Japanese binding techniques - which would be an awesome thing to go do... - I'll probably move around a bit. I'd far prefer to be in one of the big cities, either way, though I'm not too terribly picky about which big city. Of course, Tokyo or Kyoto would totally rock. :)