One more

I have signed a contract for a third year in Higashi. I’m staying because, overall, I love my life here and I like my job. I love getting to spend time with kids and watch them mature from one year to the next, let alone one month to the next. Though sometimes it can get a little too quiet and rural, and while there are moments when I yearn for things like faster internet and a lifestyle that doesn’t include needing a car, I like Higashi (and considering I lived in Chicago before this, it would seem that proximity to large bodies of water is a necessity for me). I like the warm weather and the ability to spend time walking on beaches without it having to be a special trip. I’m still learning lots of Japanese, really, lots of it (see below on learning curve).

Obviously, staying a third year has more to offer me in the way of good things; otherwise I would not have decided to stay. The image that just popped into my head was one of a learning curve, starting to rise slowly, at some point increasing dramatically, and then finally settling off and drawing toward a finite limit (though in cases of life experience, is there ever a limit?). I find myself somewhere on that steep slope, with a whole lot learned and a whole lot more to experience.

My friend Cliff puts it this way: “When I leave Japan, I want to be ready to leave Japan.” JET gives ALTs a limit of three years (in exceptional cases four or five). Assuming I sign off after three, I will have spent roughly 1/10th of my life in Japan. That’s a lot of time. And I'm not ready to leave just yet.

And since I feel like being provocative, I’ll give you a preview of my idea after JET. It involves one motorcycle in the range of 125-250cc, lots of time, and a westerly direction. A few years ago when I did the Mongol Rally (2006), I completed a circum-navigation of the earth going east. Though I can hardly consider Chicago a starting point this time around, I consider myself heading west this time. So I’m set for a plan for the next 18 months. After that, I think the 30’s are going to turn out to be my most interesting decade yet.