Addendum: Retroactive Post

So yesterday, I decided on my new goal for life after JET. I'm going to try to move to France and Italy. I've wanted to go probably since I was old enough to read about them, and now that I realized how much traveling means to me and that I can handle living in a foreign country, I think I'm ready to commit myself to it. So now I have a year and a half to prepare myself.

I think I'm going to try to get my CELTA certification while I'm in Japan, so in order to aid me in the job search there. It's apparently very well respected in Europe, and also by then, I'll have had two years of secondary education teaching experience. I'm going to have to brush up on my French, and start saving up my money. Whew, I can't believe I decided this less than 24 hours ago. I'm excited. This'll give me direction for the rest of my time here. Okay. Let's see how this pans out.

Plans: Retroactive Post

Ever since Albert got back from Canada, he's been on this food kick, I think in good part fueled by my own interests in cooking. He's been trying to perfect this Uighur recipe, and is compulsively watching episodes of Chef. As a result, and aided by my renewing dinner parties at my house, I've found just how important it is to me to cook for other people. I feel like I'm just biding my time until I give in and go to culinary arts school like I've been dreaming about in the back of my head.

I really want to open up a dimsum restaurant in Japan. I have no idea how to make any of it, but I think that it'd be really profitable and I could use that profit to open up a restaurant of my own cooking. I need to find a business partner, someone that would be good at handling the money and legal side of things, because god knows I could care less about that. Ha, it's funny to think of myself as an artist, but that's just the type of attitude I would expect from one about anything other than their chosen art form.

An example of one of my dinner party meals:

Goodbye Emerald City: Retroactive Post

So I'm back in Japan for the third time in the last year. Every time I've come back, it's been different. This time, I've come home. Not because this necessarily feels more like home than Seattle or Nagoya did, but because it has to be. It's going to be my home for the next year and a half. Before I left for Seattle, that thought really chafed. The thought of being stuck in a tiny little town was so different from living in a big city where everything was new.

Now that I'm back, I realize that it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Decent weather really helps with that. I told a good friend the night after I went out with everyone to Kona Kitchen, that I finally felt like I was ready to go back. I had said my goodbyes and all that was left was my parent's anniversary, packing and the trip back. I'm still trying to feel like I'm ready to BE back, but it gets easier and easier with each passing day.

That said, it surprises me how long ago being in Seattle feels, when it has only been a week. At the same time, it feels like life was just on pause here while I left and that my time in Seattle didn't really happen. Albert was right, it does feel like a dream. I keep trying to go back every once in a while, but it gets harder and harder to remember the details the more I wake up.