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Soliciting Advice
I keep telling myself that I should wait a few days, and see how some stuff pans out, but I had an idea that's eating my brain, and it won't leave me be, so I'm gonna go ahead and explain the situation, explain the solution I thought of, and if anyone has any advice, I'd really appreciate it, cause I don't really know what to do. Except that I know I aughta be waiting on making the decision, if only I could make myself. Heck, at this point I'm not sure I'm not laying it all out as much for me as for any one else...
There are a bunch of different things that are going on right now that are problematic.
1. The visa situation. Technically speaking, as long as I never overstay my visa and don't do anything at all illegal in any other respects, I should be able to leave and reenter Japan as many times as I want. In practice, however, they've been getting increasingly strict in regards to visas, and so if I want to be sure that I'll be able to come back, I need to get a visa of some sort. The only ones that really make sense are: a work visa, which I can't get without a job here and a sponsor; a student visa, which I could get if I enrolled in a serious course of study - the kinds of places that you take classes for 20+ hours a week - which I really, really don't want to do; or a cultural studies visa, which I'd love, but which requires a sponsor, and I've no real way to get a sponsor. Hence, the only kind that seems plausible is a work visa. However, as I explained in my last post, the job picture is VERY bleak right now. With Nova closing, lots of people who need the money more than me and who have more experience that I do, all of whom already have visas, thus sparing potential employers the bother, are on the job market. Unless a position needs an editor instead of a teacher, or unless I'm willing to move outside of Tokyo, my chances for employment really don't look good. All in all, this has me stressed out and unhappy because, simply, I REALLY like it here. I don't WANT to leave. I want to stay! Of course, even if I get a work visa, I'm not really planning to maintain a job here, which makes the whole thing somehow ludicrous.
2. Work situation. My mother's health continues to be poor. She's in a lot of pain, and stress only makes it worse. Over the last few months, in particular, I've noticed a steady decrease in her level of happiness. In short, she's miserable, and she thinks that she has to keep working - and she's probably right, at least at the moment. Unfortunately, with me in Japan, there's nothing I can do to help, and in fact I'm making it work, because the time difference is driving her nuts. Since I'm utterly dependent on this job for my livelihood, it's in my best interest to find a way to improve this situation. Obviously, I can't do anything to decrease the amount of pain she's in, but there ARE ways that I could help with her stress level...but not that many that I can implement from a foreign country.
3. The binding situation. Since I've gotten here, I've hardly done and work with books at all. There are a few reasons for this - I haven't always had the time, I haven't always felt like it, etc. However, all of that aside, there's something I say to others that I know is applicable now myself: no matter what we say we want to do, the things we ACTUALLY do are a much better indication of how we feel. I COULD find the time, if I really wanted to. And yet I DO love doing it, and I do want to pursue it, and so I'm left wondering the simple (or not so simple?) question of why, if I really believe I want to, am I not doing so??
4. The depression situation. I don't use LJ to air my personal emotional issues. Thus, I'm not going to go in to depth on this. However, I've been in a bad spiral the last few weeks; it left me almost paralyzed while I was in Singapore. I'm just...down. Oh, some days I'm perfectly fine, but I've been having a lot of trouble with what counts for me as insomnia - I take forever to fall asleep, I wake up repeatedly, that sort of thing. It's annoying to have to fight through feeling lousy all the time, and even though at almost no point do I think "I wish I could see XX" I'm still pretty positive that it's almost entirely loneliness. It's nothing I can't deal with...but dealing with it drains my energy and leaves me aggravated with myself. Which makes me more depressed. As I said, a bad spiral.
In mid-September, my mother mentioned to me that she's been thinking about the lease for the apartment in NYC. This has come up before, but she seems more serious about it now. In short, the situation is simple. Our apartment is a great, two bedroom/four room apartment in a wonderful, safe, centrally located neighborhood (Manhattan, 86th St.), which, thanks to rent control, costs about $1250 a month. If we could get my name - or my brothers, for that matter - on the lease, then we could keep this apartment even if mom wanted to move, or, god forbid, if something happened to her. However, the building is co-op - they don't lease any more - and they've been trying to get rid of the renters of ages. They're not going to want to do this. And there is no way to do it without me living at home again for a while. We need to talk to a lawyer about it in general, but the fact that mom even brought it up indicates to me that it's important to her.
About the same time, something dawned on me that I hadn't really ever considered. I started working for mom in 2003 and ever since then this job has been a huge boon. At first it helped me pay the bills and do the things I want to do - my first pay check from her was the only thing that enabled me to go to Gencon one year. Recently, of course, she pays me enough that I can live not only comfortably, but with pretty much all the things I want. Fortunate that I don't want all that much, it wouldn't afford huge things, but it easily sustains life at about a level I find pleasing. Thus, always, this job was something I did because it was good money. However, in September, the strangest thing happened: I realized that I like this job. I genuinely do. And I'm pretty good at it. Not a bad combination! Now, I don't LOVE this job, but, well, it pays well, it gives me free time, it enables me to do the things I want, I can travel, I can make my own schedule, I mean, really, what more could I ask for? I'd have to be crazy not to do a job like this. And then toss in that I like it...well...that raises some interesting possibilities.
All of this mucked around in my head while I was away, and I came up with the preliminary idea two weeks ago, while I was away: Maybe when I leave Japan in June or July, I should go and live in New York instead of going to school in Boston. I wouldn't be ditching the book work - there's a place called the Center for the Book Arts where I can go and take classes - and there are loads of libraries and such where I could do some part time work, or even volunteer. Take a few years, work primarily for HEC, all that jazz. I've been thinking about it a lot, but it was so far off and would require little enough preparation that I didn't really need to make any decisions for ages.
This morning, though, I had another idea, and it's what's crawled in to my head and won't leave. It solves all of my problems, and doesn't leave me in limbo for ages. All it means is giving up something that I want in order to take the stress off my mom.
I could not come back to Japan after the holidays. Plain and simple - I'll have gotten to live in another country for four wonderful months, and I won't have to worry about the visa situation. Given the way things at HEC work, it will be well within the realm of the doable to come back some other time when things at work have settled down, some summer or other, and live here for another 3 or 6 months. It solves the binding situation, because I can find out for sure if I really want to be doing that easily - if I sign up for a class and that reinvigorates my interest - or doesn't - I know the answer. It solves the depression situation, hopefully, because I'll be able to keep in closer touch with my friends, be able to actually visit them or be visited by them, and anyway it's got to be easier for me to meet people in NYC than it has in Japan, if only because there won't be a language barrier. The only thing I have to give up is the simple fact that I really like it here and don't want to leave - but of course I was going to have to leave anyway, and nothing will stop me from coming back.
So I've been fighting an internal battle. Most of me thinks I shouldn't jump to decisions, that I should wait until I hear back from more of the job type things, and that I'm clearly being hasty. However, I can admit at least to myself that, well, I usually jump to decisions. That's just kinda how my brain does it. I can't really help but feeling like coming back would be the "adult" thing to do, too. Even if I don't move back home - which, honestly, I can't say would be my first choice, I'd much rather get my own place, I think mom and I would kill each other in under a week if I moved back home.
Heck, I don't even really know what I'm looking for in terms of advice - I think I just am hoping that if people can look over the above and let me know if my arguments hold together...well, if everything looks like it's got internal consistency, if there really is a logic behind this string of thoughts, then I think that kind of makes the decision for me. And still gives me 6+ weeks in Japan.
So, uh, thoughts?
There are a bunch of different things that are going on right now that are problematic.
1. The visa situation. Technically speaking, as long as I never overstay my visa and don't do anything at all illegal in any other respects, I should be able to leave and reenter Japan as many times as I want. In practice, however, they've been getting increasingly strict in regards to visas, and so if I want to be sure that I'll be able to come back, I need to get a visa of some sort. The only ones that really make sense are: a work visa, which I can't get without a job here and a sponsor; a student visa, which I could get if I enrolled in a serious course of study - the kinds of places that you take classes for 20+ hours a week - which I really, really don't want to do; or a cultural studies visa, which I'd love, but which requires a sponsor, and I've no real way to get a sponsor. Hence, the only kind that seems plausible is a work visa. However, as I explained in my last post, the job picture is VERY bleak right now. With Nova closing, lots of people who need the money more than me and who have more experience that I do, all of whom already have visas, thus sparing potential employers the bother, are on the job market. Unless a position needs an editor instead of a teacher, or unless I'm willing to move outside of Tokyo, my chances for employment really don't look good. All in all, this has me stressed out and unhappy because, simply, I REALLY like it here. I don't WANT to leave. I want to stay! Of course, even if I get a work visa, I'm not really planning to maintain a job here, which makes the whole thing somehow ludicrous.
2. Work situation. My mother's health continues to be poor. She's in a lot of pain, and stress only makes it worse. Over the last few months, in particular, I've noticed a steady decrease in her level of happiness. In short, she's miserable, and she thinks that she has to keep working - and she's probably right, at least at the moment. Unfortunately, with me in Japan, there's nothing I can do to help, and in fact I'm making it work, because the time difference is driving her nuts. Since I'm utterly dependent on this job for my livelihood, it's in my best interest to find a way to improve this situation. Obviously, I can't do anything to decrease the amount of pain she's in, but there ARE ways that I could help with her stress level...but not that many that I can implement from a foreign country.
3. The binding situation. Since I've gotten here, I've hardly done and work with books at all. There are a few reasons for this - I haven't always had the time, I haven't always felt like it, etc. However, all of that aside, there's something I say to others that I know is applicable now myself: no matter what we say we want to do, the things we ACTUALLY do are a much better indication of how we feel. I COULD find the time, if I really wanted to. And yet I DO love doing it, and I do want to pursue it, and so I'm left wondering the simple (or not so simple?) question of why, if I really believe I want to, am I not doing so??
4. The depression situation. I don't use LJ to air my personal emotional issues. Thus, I'm not going to go in to depth on this. However, I've been in a bad spiral the last few weeks; it left me almost paralyzed while I was in Singapore. I'm just...down. Oh, some days I'm perfectly fine, but I've been having a lot of trouble with what counts for me as insomnia - I take forever to fall asleep, I wake up repeatedly, that sort of thing. It's annoying to have to fight through feeling lousy all the time, and even though at almost no point do I think "I wish I could see XX" I'm still pretty positive that it's almost entirely loneliness. It's nothing I can't deal with...but dealing with it drains my energy and leaves me aggravated with myself. Which makes me more depressed. As I said, a bad spiral.
In mid-September, my mother mentioned to me that she's been thinking about the lease for the apartment in NYC. This has come up before, but she seems more serious about it now. In short, the situation is simple. Our apartment is a great, two bedroom/four room apartment in a wonderful, safe, centrally located neighborhood (Manhattan, 86th St.), which, thanks to rent control, costs about $1250 a month. If we could get my name - or my brothers, for that matter - on the lease, then we could keep this apartment even if mom wanted to move, or, god forbid, if something happened to her. However, the building is co-op - they don't lease any more - and they've been trying to get rid of the renters of ages. They're not going to want to do this. And there is no way to do it without me living at home again for a while. We need to talk to a lawyer about it in general, but the fact that mom even brought it up indicates to me that it's important to her.
About the same time, something dawned on me that I hadn't really ever considered. I started working for mom in 2003 and ever since then this job has been a huge boon. At first it helped me pay the bills and do the things I want to do - my first pay check from her was the only thing that enabled me to go to Gencon one year. Recently, of course, she pays me enough that I can live not only comfortably, but with pretty much all the things I want. Fortunate that I don't want all that much, it wouldn't afford huge things, but it easily sustains life at about a level I find pleasing. Thus, always, this job was something I did because it was good money. However, in September, the strangest thing happened: I realized that I like this job. I genuinely do. And I'm pretty good at it. Not a bad combination! Now, I don't LOVE this job, but, well, it pays well, it gives me free time, it enables me to do the things I want, I can travel, I can make my own schedule, I mean, really, what more could I ask for? I'd have to be crazy not to do a job like this. And then toss in that I like it...well...that raises some interesting possibilities.
All of this mucked around in my head while I was away, and I came up with the preliminary idea two weeks ago, while I was away: Maybe when I leave Japan in June or July, I should go and live in New York instead of going to school in Boston. I wouldn't be ditching the book work - there's a place called the Center for the Book Arts where I can go and take classes - and there are loads of libraries and such where I could do some part time work, or even volunteer. Take a few years, work primarily for HEC, all that jazz. I've been thinking about it a lot, but it was so far off and would require little enough preparation that I didn't really need to make any decisions for ages.
This morning, though, I had another idea, and it's what's crawled in to my head and won't leave. It solves all of my problems, and doesn't leave me in limbo for ages. All it means is giving up something that I want in order to take the stress off my mom.
I could not come back to Japan after the holidays. Plain and simple - I'll have gotten to live in another country for four wonderful months, and I won't have to worry about the visa situation. Given the way things at HEC work, it will be well within the realm of the doable to come back some other time when things at work have settled down, some summer or other, and live here for another 3 or 6 months. It solves the binding situation, because I can find out for sure if I really want to be doing that easily - if I sign up for a class and that reinvigorates my interest - or doesn't - I know the answer. It solves the depression situation, hopefully, because I'll be able to keep in closer touch with my friends, be able to actually visit them or be visited by them, and anyway it's got to be easier for me to meet people in NYC than it has in Japan, if only because there won't be a language barrier. The only thing I have to give up is the simple fact that I really like it here and don't want to leave - but of course I was going to have to leave anyway, and nothing will stop me from coming back.
So I've been fighting an internal battle. Most of me thinks I shouldn't jump to decisions, that I should wait until I hear back from more of the job type things, and that I'm clearly being hasty. However, I can admit at least to myself that, well, I usually jump to decisions. That's just kinda how my brain does it. I can't really help but feeling like coming back would be the "adult" thing to do, too. Even if I don't move back home - which, honestly, I can't say would be my first choice, I'd much rather get my own place, I think mom and I would kill each other in under a week if I moved back home.
Heck, I don't even really know what I'm looking for in terms of advice - I think I just am hoping that if people can look over the above and let me know if my arguments hold together...well, if everything looks like it's got internal consistency, if there really is a logic behind this string of thoughts, then I think that kind of makes the decision for me. And still gives me 6+ weeks in Japan.
So, uh, thoughts?
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