A layover that's lasted a year

The layover is, according to Google's define: feature, "a period of rest or waiting before a further stage in a journey." According to Anthony Bourdain's marketing department, it's an underrated opportunity for adventure on a more compact scale. 

I'm not one to write year-in-review posts, but in the case of 2011 my life was both. I uprooted myself and settled back down twice with a third trip on the horizon.

The first move was from San Diego to Palo Alto, SoCal to NorCal. I had spent the last several months in SD in that period of rest and waiting. With one quarter to go in school, I came pretty close to burning out, so I took a supremely easy quarter and spent my time enjoying the place, the weather, and a very positive relationship. 

Now, with 6 months' hindsight, I hate having left. San Diego rocked, and I miss living in an atmosphere of constant learning, constant international exposure, and constant ramen while living in a wonderful, comfortable apartment. Alas, graduation happens.

The second move was from Palo Alto to Dallas, from the place I always wanted to live in to home. With less than 6 weeks' hindsight, I wish I hadn't left. PA rocked. Aroon made me learn that I actually can live with the right roommate, and that it's really fun to live with a techie gamer who loves being social, loves beer and happens to be an awesome friend all around. A visit from Ale was that return to the best parts of the high school days that become oh-so-rare after age 25. Nick and Sam, I'm forever in debt to both of you. Everyone at Apple (especially iOS Maps and Keyboards; Tableau employee spouses who throw awesome parties and former employees bound to other startups included) is awesome, and my hat collectively goes off to you. The privilege of still hanging out with some of my favorite grad school friends there was icing on the cake.

I absorbed so much of the professional atmosphere there, and not just the lack of dress code. I worked at a tee-tiny startup for a couple months as a contractor, showing me the value of fast failure, being decisive, and just getting things done yourself - lack of skill isn't a valid excuse. It's the pace, challenge, control and collaboration I want. Can't wait to come back with a thicker resume and do something awesome.

That life was still one of waiting - to see if I could land a job. To see if I could move out of Aroon's place, get an apartment, and go on an IKEA shopping rampage. There were days when I wanted nothing more; I felt like that had been my destiny for months. I was ultimately waiting to see if someone would make a bet on me. Alas, they didn't. I wasn't pigeonholing myself properly.

My pigeonhole is overseas. My job search did end, and it's off to Tokyo I go. Since the search was over, it was time to clear out of Aroon's place (but thank you again for the generosity dude!) but I have four months to go before my job actually starts.

So here I am, in Dallas, resting and waiting before the next stage in the journey. It's an awesome chance to get quality time with hometown friends and family before that opportunity becomes exceedingly rare. 

To Tokyo I go (in a while)

The cat's out of the bag. I'm moving to Tokyo!

I told Facebook (ie, my friends and loved ones) about a week or so ago, but I've more or less known I'd go for a while longer than that. It was really just a matter of reaching a particular level of certainty that crazy random twists wouldn't happen at the last minute.

I guess they still could happen, but at this point I'm OK with stopping the job search and turning down whatever leftover job search calls that trickle in. (Why do I care about this? About 48 hours before my first departure to Japan, back in '07, Google called completely out of the blue. Making that decision was agonizing and sleep-depriving.)

Where ya going?
So, for the handful of readers who haven't already been exposed to the news somehow, I'm headed to Rakuten, Japan's #1 in e-commerce. (That's pronounced 'rock-ten.') I'll start in April 2012, so I'll be moving at the end of March. 

What're ya doing?
Honestly? I don't know. They'll assign me after a month of training. Could be their core e-commerce business, or it could be new lines of business (like Travel, Golf or Weddings!), or it could be international rollouts of existing products (how about Edy for your NFC money needs?), or it could be assisting in international acquisitions (which have happened so far in the US, UK, France, Russia and China by joint venture). They're a big company but still have room to grow at 7,000 employees (for comparison, Amazon has 43,000).

Are you nervous?
You mean about radiation? Not so much. I'm more nervous about leaving loved ones very far behind here in the US.

Are you excited?
Hell yes! A UT alum already working for the company was cool enough to reach out to me and tell me all about his experience. Seems like he's having a great time. When I was living and teaching in the boonies, I came to Tokyo to recharge my batteries. Now I'll live there.

Isn't it expensive? Are you making enough money to live on?
Tokyo housing isn't as bad as you may have been led to believe. I've found apartments online for about $1,000 a month in rent in awesome locations. Small, sure, but definitely not shoebox-sized. It'll be less if I let Rakuten set me up with housing. The company is located on the southern edge of central Tokyo, in Shinagawa. That's a major bullet train stop and is just around the corner from Haneda Airport, the swanky city one that just started taking international flights. I'll live somewhere roughly 30 minutes from Shinagawa. If I'm lucky it'll be in another big neighborhood such as Naka-meguro. Otherwise I'll just be a teeny-tiny bit closer to Yokohama: convenient to work but a little further from all the fun action.

For other money matters, Rakuten has free breakfast and lunch and pays for my commuting. I just need to pay for suits to wear!

What are you doing in the meantime?
I'm headed home to Texas to enjoy the winter at home, rent-free, with Mom. I'm going to miss California a lot but it'll be a good place for 4 months' downtime before things get crazy. Oh, also, I'm looking for an honest 4 months' work in Texas! So, uh, bring me in as a temp or something!

I'll be home before Thanksgiving! 

The day I traveled back in time 10 years

Blake, 16: Whoa, what the hell!

Blake, 26: Yup! I'm you, in the future. Go ahead, check me out.

Blake, 16: Well, you're too close to me to be someone else screwing with me. But I fill out, eh?

Blake, 26: You'll fluctuate. Your - well, our - stomach is pretty sensitive, so any time you go abroad you'll lose weight fast.

Blake, 16: So I'm still alive in 10 years, that's good. And going abroad? That sounds cool, if a little scary. Are you here with some other kind of warning?

Blake, 26: Nope! Just good news. As for the abroad thing, you'll actively seek out that challenge. It's not scary, because you tend to go prepared.

Blake, 16: OK, lay it on me straight - do I work out the 'girls' thing?

Blake, 26: Yes! Oh man, do you ever figure it out. College gets interesting but you start going crazy after college. By the time you're my age, the fun wears off so you go back to caring about personality and stuff.

Blake, 16: Anyone I know?

Blake, 26: Yeah, but you wouldn't believe me if I told you the circumstances. None of your current crushes, I will say that. You may as well go play more games.

Blake, 16: Oh yeah! What are you playing?

Blake, 26: You ready for this? Ico, its sequel, and Deus Ex. Occasionally Quake 3.

Blake, 16: WTF? Those are already out now.

Blake, 26: Remakes and re-releases kind of become a thing. The Deus Ex is a new one and it's really good, though.

Blake, 16: Sounds like I'm still a gamer. Not that I doubted that.

Blake, 26: Even more good news in that way: you'll not only achieve your dream of going to Japan, you'll learn to speak the language fluently and you'll live and work there.

Blake, 16: Sweet! Do I work in the industry?

Blake, 26: In Japan? No. You'll go once to be a teacher (it's a really famous exchange program, don't worry about it) and then again to work for an Internet company. You'll work in the industry in the US, but you'll have a really contentious relationship with it. In two jobs you'll be fired from one (the boss is an idiot, don't worry) and laid off from the other after a couple months at each.

Blake, 16: Boo! Can you - err, we - do anything about it?

Blake, 26: Nothing that we came up with at the time. OK, so there is a little bad news in the bigger world: Bush wins the election on a crazy technicality after a nasty contest and things turn seriously bad politically. It starts to resemble Deus Ex - the US gets attacked by terrorists in NYC and it results in a big bad power grab by various government agencies. The rich get richer and the middle class starts getting eroded. We'll go to war, but the army is really small these days - there's no draft and you won't go.

Blake, 16: Aiee.

Blake, 26: Personally, you'll be fine. Mom gets rich. Try to be nice - she works insanely hard to get you everything you need and even want.

Blake, 16: Wow, uh, thanks, parental me?

Blake, 26: Hey, just sharing wisdom to make your life better. You didn't think a time-traveler visit would be all stock tips and rainbows and puppies, did you?

Blake, 16: Oh hey! Yeah, how about stock tips?

Blake, 26: Sounds weird now, I know, but do this: buy Apple stock. Totally serious. They start making really cool stuff.

Blake, 16: OK, really now, any warnings for me?

Blake, 26: Nah, you'll be fine. You might avoid dating in high school altogether - your friends are much more worth your time - but aside from that the next ten years are pretty awesome. OH! One last thing - when you get sick in Japan, stop drinking the coffee, and when you get to San Diego (yeah, you go there) drink a LOT of water - it'll save you from quite a lot of pain.

But really, the next ten years look good for you. Enjoy them!

A bit of politics

Recently there was a wave of forwarded emails and Facebook copy/pasting wherein students showed their support for passing some sort of law that would forgive all student debt.

I even got it from my mom, and she stopped forwarding MoveOn.org emails to me after the 2004 election. (Then again, she moved a little more to the right in the intervening years, but I digress). My grad school classmates, my band of brothers in job searching, blew up Facebook with it.

Sounds nice, right? Drop a year's salary in debt on a Masters degree, find that it doesn't get you a job, then let the debt slide since you did the good American thing but it didn't work out for you anyway.

Too bad it can't happen. 

Total student loan debt hit $830 billion this year, a 4x increase from just 10 years ago. American university education is officially a racket.

Remember AIG? The "too big to fail" guys? Their market cap was just $200 billion at peak and held just barely $1 trillion in assets. For $830 billion in debts to suddenly vanish overnight would be a serious, serious problem for the guys who own that debt.

And at 8 percent interest - that's what you're paying, grads! - the $830 billion easily balloons its valuation into the trillions of dollars. As much as I hate to say it, I suspect that forgiving student debt would actually be a systemic risk.

You could make the argument - and perhaps those on the left do - that if the government were to pay off those debts at face value, and the government has spent nearly as much money on deficit stimulus in recent years, you'd avoid financial collapse and still do the right thing.

To them, I wish them luck in persuading the government to spend nearly a trillion dollars on the country's small sliver of most educated people.

That said, as a student debtor, I'm obliged to say that I would support such an action in the alternate universe in which it could happen. But since I don't believe in online petitions or political action via Facebook posts, I'd like to propose some more concrete political action:

I will donate $10,000 to the campaign of the President who passes student loan forgiveness.
(*by way of a shell corporation, since it's above the limit for individuals.)

Sound crazy? It's more money than I have, yes. But it's a small fraction of my student debt and since I have good credit, I could pay back that loan at way less than 8 percent.