By Mark
Hello all. It's Mark again. You may remember me from my previous series of essays on Japan-Guide. I recently returned from Japan again after spending 6 months there, and I'm feeling the urge to write again. Stay tuned for more Oriental adventures.
As noted in my previous essays, I was working as a network engineer for a telecommunications company for several years when the dot.com slump hit us all. I saw the writing on the wall, and I began to put my plans in motion. Frankly, I was burning out at my job, and I needed a change. I was traveling for business so much I was seeing my own bed only a few days a month, and it was getting to me. One day while surfing the web, I saw an ad for a Japanese language school in Japan. I looked more into it, and it seemed legit. In fact, it seemed almost too good to be true. I decided this was the break I needed, and began the process to take a leave of absence from my job. At the same time, my company was deciding who was going to get laid off in the first round of personnel cuts. Since I was the only engineer for the entire state of Nevada, and I was working out of my house, and the casinos were not doing much business at that time in services, they figured
they could safely get rid of me.
I knew what was coming as soon as my boss called me at home and said "Hey Mark, my boss XXX and I are flying to Vegas to meet with you." This was at a time when all non-essential business travel was being denied. Of course, since I was already planning on going to Japan, this was fine with me. I met them at a local office, and I got laid off. Instead of going to Japan on my own cash, I got 5 months of severance pay, plus untaken vacation time. I was a happy, happy man. The Human Resources person noted "You're taking this extremely well!". Hehe, damn right I was. I was so happy I took my boss and my boss's boss out to a local strip club to celebrate before they had to catch their plane.
The next few months were spent in preparation for going to Japan. I put all my stuff in storage, found a stashing spot for my car, arranged remote banking options, and got my visa stuff all straight at the Consulate in San Francisco. By the time April 2001 came around, I was all set to go. I was prepared to spend the next year of my life in quaint Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture, Japan going to full time Japanese language classes at the Yamasa Institute. See www.yamasa.org for details on the school.
I think I was somewhere over Alaska when I came to the realization I was completely barking insane. What kind of moron gives up a job paying six figures, puts all his junk in a storage unit, and takes off for a foreign country to go to a school he's never seen in person? Needless to say, I did not sleep on the plane ride over to Nagoya. It seemed particularly ironic that I had chosen to arrive on April 1st. I touched down in Nagoya with a deep sense of foreboding mixed with a steely
determination to make this crazy plan work somehow.
Well folks, that's all I have time for tonight, but stay tuned for more on my latest trip to Japan. As always, feel free to email me at gleep@lvcm.com
