| FrancisNobleman said: share more of your story. Where are you and what do you do for a living. How did you get there. The premise of this thread is inspiration. Inspire us. |
It's not really a story of success. Perhaps a story of less suckiness, because if I were in Spain now I don't know what I'd be doing. Anyway:
I'm 25. When I was 18 I was bored of my life in Spain (and Spain in general) so I left in an Easyjet flight to London. I managed to find start a job in 10 days and by my first paymen I had £7 left, lol. I was living in a room, sharing a flat, so pretty shitty, but boy was I happy to be independent and break from my old life totally. I was lucky to have the foresight to leave a few years before the crisis started. Going from Spain to the UK is not hard (bar the language barrier) because we're part of the EU though, so no major effort other than will and getting used to the language (I had a grasp from school, games and series which I liked watching in the OV).
When I felt my English was good I applied for university in London, but I was still a little scared to compete with native speakers. But my mentality is usually "what the hell, I can always quit any time so whatever". I did more than fine. Actually, I though going to uni in the UK was pretty easy, perhaps even too much. But it beats universities in mainland Europe where to learn journalism you have to learn language, history and unrelated shit like that, at least this was practical. I worked full time while studying full time in order to be able to pay for my studies, so I had no days off which sucked ass, but I managed to even save money.
During this, I met a Japanese girl who became my girlfriend, and after three years when her visa was expiring and we saw the only way to stay together was marrying we did just that. After seven years in London I was pretty sick of the city and I thought it was pretty exciting to live in Japan, so I came here a couple of months ago.
Now, this is not exactly working my ass off to come here because I got a marriage visa, so... Later I discovered that it's not that hard getting a working visa here as a native or very fluent English speaker, but I would never have found that out before.
Now I'm a one-to-one English instructor and I love my job. I sit down, have conversation with mostly interesting people, have fun, and go back home. I can work when I want which is nice. It's fun and not stressing at all. I spend my free time meeting friends (which I stole from my wife who's not very outgoing, lol) and getting pissed in izakayas and in kabukicho, so right now I'm having a blast, perhaps in 7 years I'll be bored again.
Money-wise, as I said I have a few million yen, so nothing spectacular, but enough to be comfortable. We'll be saving money though because one of our salaries is enough to pay all expenses in one month, so the extra salary is pure savings. Enough to buy whatever I need, probably because I don't have so many needs. If I did this for the rest of my life I'd be "rich" by the time I retire I guess, lol. But I doubt I'll stick to this forever.
Not a success story really or very inspirational. I usually try not to worry about middle term future and just do what I feel like without thinking too much about it. I'm too lazy to worry. It generally turns out good. Maybe I was lucky, I don't know. There you go.
No troll is too much for me to handle. I rehabilitate trolls, I train people. I am the Troll Whisperer.
