It was a hit or miss kind of day for me. I didn’t get all of my errands done, due to complications at two places. The Sprint PCS store was useless, I had to pay by debit card over the phone to pre-pay due to a tiny fee that was past due. So going to the store was completely unnecessary. With my phone turned on, I went to the DMV, and being in line over there was a major pain in the ass again. I had to do my work meeting over my recently reactivated phone, which saved me a little time. The meeting was pretty useless, too. Why I even bother to attend just escapes me. But at least I got my address changed and the DMV knows now where I live and won’t send mail bombs to the old place.
Unfortunately, because of the DMV, the AAA office was closed by the time I made it over there, and then I was late for my aunt’s birthday dinner, which ran over and I couldn’t drop anything off at storage because they closed at 1900. Ugh! Which means now I get to drive around another weekend with crap in my trunk. Yay!
The silver lining in today’s dark cloud was a change in schedule to go visit Karen and ditch laundry for the night. Though, I’m doing a load of laundry as I type this. Anyway, she and I talked at length with one another, and as usual, we cover a grand variety of issues until about 0100 this morning. Among them was recent events in her life, but most importantly, about going to Japan next year. I had mentioned that Dave and I talked about going with Ben and Mark during the akemashite festival in December and January. But she was talking about going there to live for a year and a half, going to a full time language school. Apparently, in Tokyo, they have these Japanese language schools that charge roughly 5 grand for a year’s worth of instruction. The year is divided up into four quarters, and the school’s year is from April to April. Each quarter is equivalent to a full year of American instruction in the language. So in theory a full year of this school in Japan is equal to four full years of studying the language. The added benefit of which would be to actually live in a country where you must speak it in order to survive. This is an aspect to my schooling that has been woefully deficient. I’m learning the language, but I don’t use it enough for it to stick. If I were in Japan, using the language while studying it, I would pick it up a hell of a lot better/faster than in the United States.
I would absolutely love to do this. But in order for me to do it, I would need to clear off my debts (doable), and then save up for living expenses. Also add to the fact that in August, I will be a quarter-vested with PayPal, giving me a couple of thousand shares to either hold onto or sell or just sell the options and put into some other holding account to not be touched for the rest of the year. If I quit PayPal, then my income would simply be from the sale of the stock and I would be in the lowest income bracket. Again, this is doable. I’ve actually already spoken to a financial advisor about plans post-vesting, so I have good information about this.
So, my dream of living in Japan and learning the language might actually come true! If I stick to a spending plan (which so far, I’ve been doing really well), and do what I need to do, come January, I might be moving there to live. There’s a certain amount of promise to the future, now, that I’ve not felt in a really long time.
Here’s hoping.
