I met Kedvesem in university in the States, but she'd grown up overseas (mostly Italy and Japan), so once we decided to marry, we saw Japan as a convenient option. Her family is here. (No, she's a white American girl.) So we moved here as soon as we graduated back in 1997. For the first six months, we took over hr parents' English classes while they were on furlough back in the States. (They're missionaries.) This gave us a window to find jobs and an apartment, both of which we did with alacrity.
I thought we might stay a couple years, but time marched on. We had kids, I got a great job, and the financial support for child-rearing is excellent here, so we decided to stay.
Fast-forward to 20 years in Japan! I've taken a different route from most, though, by cobbling together jobs instead of going for full-time slavery. So, I write gay romance novels and Ked is an editor working via telecommuting with a publisher in Canada (yay for paypal!). I also dress up like a priest and perform hotel weddings on the weekend. In addition, I sit at a desk at the front of a university classroom and tell the kids to get into groups and speak English with minimum input from me.
And I get eight weeks of vacation a year.
Life is a dream.
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