多分,日本に帰る

I'm considering returning to Japan.

I've been home for two months now and while I love being back, I should probably be thinking about the future. Right now I work with my dad a few days each week (lawn mowing and maintenance on his buildings mostly) but I wouldn't call it a job exactly. It's probably more accurate to think of myself as unemployed. I've been trying to come up with things I could do with my life, but very few of them appeal to me. Here's what I've come up with:

Moving back to Boston. Daniela is there. I have friends there. The city is great, especially in the spring and fall. Boston is large enough where its possible to find any job that you could want. The problem is that I don't know what kind of a job I want. I could always return to Investors Bank & Trust where I worked right before I left for Japan. It would be easy enough to get my old job back and the money wouldn't be terrible. However, I know that I wouldn't be able to do that for more than a year or so. Mutual Fund Accounting isn't a career choice, trust me. Plus, with a year of experience doing that kind of work, it would make more sense to go to one of IBT's competitors (Evergreen, State Street, Fidelity, etc;) and make more money. However, I think I've decided that no matter what I do it's not going to be about the money. It just seems like such a lame thing to spend so much of your time pursuing. Like Slug said "I'd rather live in a tent than bust my ass to pay the rent." Fund accounting is out. Unless I can think of a job that I would want in Boston, going somewhere new is probably better than somewhere I've been.

I could try to get a job at an architectural firm. I think it's something I would like to do. It's also the kind of job that you find in any big city, which means I wouldn't have to move to Duluth or anything. The only problem is that its a plan for the long-run and I may not be there yet. I don't want to sign a lease in some city, get comfortable, and then decide I want to try something temporary a little bit longer. Like teaching English in a foreign country.

Option three: returning to Japan. I go back and forth whether I want to return or not. A few days ago it seemed brilliant and last night, while talking to Daniela, it seemed lame. What is it that I would gain out of going back? I could improve my Japanese. That's huge. This is also why I would want to return to Japan over going somewhere new. I mean, I don't want to start all over again with French or German. There are still plenty of things to see, especially if I went somewhere new like Osaka or Kyoto. When I think about the things that I like to do the most, reading and learning are at the top of my list. Speaking fluent Japanese is a goal that I've set for myself, and I would improve a lot faster living in Japan than watching anime and reading textbooks here.

I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I think I've already ruled out a few things. That feels like progress I guess.