Job rationalizing

I haven’t been writing lately, probably mostly because I’ve spent my free time on Factorio. I recently reached a point where I had accomplished my most clear goals, and I realized that my scale was way too large to actually implement and expect my computer to handle. There are still things that I could do, but I think I’m more likely to start a new game at this point, despite having invested ~130 hours in this save. But I more or less achieved a feeling of the pointlessness of what I was doing, so I don’t think I’ll be returning to the game soon, at least not seriously.

Yesterday I enjoyed playing my Japanese point and click adventure game for the second time. I played for two hours, which is the longest I’ve ever played a visual novel in Japanese. I did get tired and skip some text, but I understood almost everything I tried to read. This morning I woke up and studied kanji first thing.

I’ve been talking to a girl via OKcupid who lives in Shiojiri. She doesn’t volunteer a lot of information, so I feel like we should try meeting, but I’m having trouble figuring out how to suggest it, especially considering I won’t even be in town next week and I’ll be busy the next week.

I went climbing on Sunday for the first time in nearly three months. My left fingers were torn up within 45 minutes (I had to bandage them), and my broken right ring finger would occasionally twinge with the pressure, and I’d have to give up. It was painful not being able to do things that were easy for me three months ago, and I definitely was weaker than before and had to go home after one and a half hours. Still, I’m glad that I could go back.

Jobs are on my mind. I’ve been looking at daijob.com and there are a lot of options that I feel like might be okay, especially in translation and programming. For the former, I would definitely have to pass JLPT N1 in December, which is a bit iffy. For the latter, I still think that I would need a good portfolio. But I realized that a lot of my problem with a programming job is just from fear of the unknown. Well, there was also the post-interview task from the programming job in NC that had me stumped, so I’m a little concerned because of that. And most jobs are from 9:00-18:00, plus overtime, which is a little more than I would like to work, but if I enjoy it, it won’t be a problem theoretically. I should try it—the worst case scenarios are that I lose a lot of time applying and/or interviewing, or maybe worst would be that I have to work for a year in terrible conditions, or I have to quit. If I want to be a teacher, that probably wouldn’t affect my job prospects, and certainly not in other countries.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Morocco, but to be honest I don’t see how that would end much differently from Russia. The people will probably be friendlier, and the food will be better, but I’m sure that I won’t know enough Arabic to converse. If I moved anywhere besides the USA and Japan, it would be kind of embracing the life of a vagrant. Perhaps with that mindset it would be easier. I would go to the country looking for new experiences, improvement of my Arabic, maybe learning to cook, and once I’ve spent a year or two there and accomplished my goals I would move on. This would give me a sense of progression that I like, but instead of career progression it would be more of an experience progression.

Tomorrow I leave for Hokkaido. I’m considering leaving early and visiting a train museum, but I’m not sure how much luggage I will have and I may have too many things to do in the morning.