Decisions, Decisions

Day 27 of writing every day.

It’s the coming of age day tomorrow in Japan, which is also a holiday to celebrate the welcoming of new adults into society by the town/city they call home. I have nothing to do with it, but I appreciate getting a 3-day weekend.

I started the day not feeling the urge to game at all, which is good. Waking up feeling refreshed, I still turned on my computer, which seems to be another habit of mine when I’m at home. But I’m getting closer and closer to reclaiming my time. Instead of just gaming, I’m picking up on TV shows that help me catch up on what’s going on with other forms of entertainment.

I had the second consultation scheduled for an online programming school that was the first business at hand for the day. Compared to the first session I don’t think there was that much new information. But that might be because I had spent a little more time looking for information on coding and programming, and their end goal is to get me to enroll without coming on too strong.

What to learn?

I’m still not quite sure which learning path to take that will land me a job that pays more and gives me control over my work hours. If anything, system engineers, specifically those who can work with the AWS cloud services are probably the hottest jobs seekers right now in terms of being able to find a good paying job readily.

My family all work or worked in the tech sector as it’s probably a more stable and well paying field where workers can more easily find new positions should they lose their job or choose to leave it because it’s not where they want to be. I’m probably the only one who’s worked full time using a computer for clerical work or teaching English, so I’m like the outlier in the family.

The job market in Japan is not the same as the US and the tech sector is years behind the US even if Japan boasts itself as technologically advanced (perhaps in other areas). Java, for example, seems to be pretty outdated in the US and is probably on it’s way to being phased out, but I’ve been told it’s the number one developer language in use in Japan while other languages—simpler to use and newer—are more trendy and have spikes and dips in popularity.

I have my doubts about focusing on Java as the key to starting a new career as a developer, but I don’t see any reason why a programming school would encourage me to learn a language that they know will be obsolete soon and risk getting bad reviews for not offering students a good learning path that would lead to a successful career change outcome.

However I also need to understand if my professional goals and the type of work I’d want to do actually matches what specific languages and the positions they open up align well. Even if I were able to obtain the skills necessary to transition into the tech sector, I’d be unable to deal with the stress of working a job I find I absolutely hate after having spent months of my life and thousands of dollars to complete the training.

In the weeks to come, I’ll have to sort out the information I need to go over and weigh my options. But I’m setting a deadline for the end of January to make a choice on what I’ll do. I’ve already signed up for an in-person school visit that seems like a viable learning option for programming and getting help finding a new job.

Plans for a new beginning

In my past job changes, I simply tried looking for new jobs after leaving my job without seriously considering the option of getting training, such as learning to code at a government recognized coding school class, was possible on my worker visa.

Perhaps the legal questions could be avoided altogether if I was learning on the side while I was teaching English and had more than an abundance of free time. Then I could have timed things to complete the training and find a new job, but learning opportunities a few years ago might have been different as well.

There’s no point dwelling on what could have been. Not unless it’s to write fiction imagining a different timeline.

I live with the consequences of my choices and the sooner I can accept them, the sooner I can be rid of mental baggage holding me back.

At any rate, the way things are going, I’m confident I won’t even consider renewing the contract for my contract should they offer it to me come spring. I’ll just let it expire at the end of March and move on.

If my permanent residency application doesn’t go through or is still being processed in spring, I’ll consult with the paralegal I hired to review what my options are, and if it would be possible for me to have a few months to complete training that would make me more valuable to Japan as a worker.

I’m done trying to search for jobs that offer scraps despite having a good level of English and Japanese skills that not that many foreign workers actually have. I’ll make that extra effort to get more desirable and marketable skills and take a leap into something that can become a career and not just a job to secure a visa.

Thanks for reading!