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...and 6 months to go.

It's unfortunate that I'm counting down my time until the end of my contract, but I'm finding this particular part of rural Japan a bit short on the culture, fellowship, and all the wonderful things that are usually associated with the JET Program experience.

Such things happen; nobody's really at fault. It's just the place where I live.

So I occupy lots of time by thinking about what I'll do at the end of my time. Stuff I'm tossing around in my head right now:

1. Work at Google. I applied to two positions at Google, one in Tokyo and one in Santa Monica. I'd love either, but I'm partial to Tokyo. I still find myself very comfortable in Tokyo and I'm really pretty sure I want to live there. The things that I'd miss, if I left Japan, can all be found in Tokyo, and it's lots of small things like the stuff you see waiting for a train, or going to really obscure, hidden restaurants with your friends after work.

2. Teach English in Tokyo. I've got a connection for this, so I could do the same work I do now but, say, inside an hour of central Tokyo. I'd get to live in Tokyo like I want, but I'd take a massive pay cut to get there. I'd say it's worth it, but it'd be a pain.

3. Go back to Texas and start a business playing video games for a living. Basically it'd be gaming events outsourcing - the kind of stuff I did as prez of the Texas Gaming Association, but this time for a living. And I'd have a warehouse full of gaming hardware :D

What do you amigos think?

I miss people, and sometimes I think about how nice it'd be to come home and get a new car and an iPhone and be with my friends again. But I just feel like I'd constantly miss the buzz of being in Japan, and especially in Tokyo. I want to look for a serious girlfriend, and my odds are better when I'm in a country of fluent English speakers (it's hard, and tiring, to have serious relationship discussions in a foreign language). But I'd get to play games with Americans, which means I could play PC games again and I could play online games with my friends instead of people who are all up all night in the States and thus awake when I play. This back-and-forth could go on forever.