warning: this post is probably one of my more rambling and boring posts. things have been getting crazier within the last few days. this post is more for me to get my thoughts out of my head than for people to read and be entertained.

so like i said, things have been getting crazier still. at long last, the interviews have started coming in. i had two interviews so far this week: one was a non-technical interview over the phone with a small exciting company based in tokyo, and the other was a video/screen-sharing technical code writing interview with a big consulting firm just outside of tokyo. one interesting side note was that i was asked to show off my japanese skills during one of the interviews, which marks the first time ive ever spoken more than one (non-programming) language during an interview. terrifying to think about, yet satisfying to accomplish.

anyway, to my surprise, one of the companies asked me the very next day to do a second interview with their software engineers in person next week. which is great news for the part of me that really wants to find a job as quickly as possible, but bad news for my japanese studies because it means ill have to miss a day of class during my last week of school.

oh, and thats another thing; ive got 7 days to decide if i can/want to stay longer at yamasa. there are two reasons why i would like to extend my stay here for two more weeks, one is that i dont want to give up on my japanese studies yet, and the other is that i want to have a roof over my head. i would love to stay longer, but i dont know if i have that option because of interviews and/or starting a new job. but if i dont decide soon to continue studying japanese at yamasa, ill be forced to move into a hostel/hotel until i can either find a job or run out of money and leave the country.

things to do next week:

• 1. study japanese
• 2. tell my friends and family i miss them
• 3. prepare for two more phone interviews
• 4. go to tokyo (all day) for a second interview
• 5. decide if i can stay at yamasa and study japanese for a couple more weeks
• 6. if i have to leave school, then i need to pack and find a cheap hostel/hotel to live for a while (starting friday the 30th)
• 7. try not to lose my mind
• 8. shave

with less than two weeks left until i go homeless again, things are starting to get a little more tense. im paid up on tuition and housing until the 30th of september, but after that im not sure what will happen next. the money i saved while teaching kids english in the JET program has been evaporating at a blinding speed lately, leaving me with only a couple options until i have to return to the states. im not complaining about the situation, because i knew it would eventually come to this. i guess im just a little surprised by how fast it all happened.

my immediate goal is to find a software job, and soon! when im not busy doing school stuff, im writing a lot of code, playing around with new languages and frameworks, and sending my resume out to recruiters and foreign companies in tokyo (and occasionally writing stupid blog posts).

basically, my options are: (a) enroll in more japanese classes at yamasa until i run out of money and have to leave japan, (b) move to tokyo and keep trying to find a job until i run out of money and have to leave japan, (c) move back to the states while continuing to look for a job in tokyo, or (d) completely give up on japan and move back to the east coast where im pretty sure i can find an awesome job pretty quickly.

ive got 12 days to figure things out and make a decision. hopefully at least one of the two interviews i have this week will blossom into something great, but i wont hold my breath. if nothing happens soon, ill be saying hello to my old friend homelessness again. hey mr homelessness, did you miss me?

hitchhiking fail (june, 2010)