Greetings,
Been enjoying Japan and doing the ALT thing for 5 years now and was really hoping to get out sooner rather than later. Nothing too special there.
I took the JLPTN2 in December and missed passing by 4 points. It’s pretty rough because it really feels like N2 is the qualification that lets you leave ALT’ing. Having to wait another 6 months for the next test. Up until now it has been completely self lead studies and there’s definitely deficiencies within my knowledge. So I started looking into the idea of doing an intensive language school course. With the 20 week course offered by Genki language school in Fukuoka looking really enticing.
With the end of the school year approaching, I was weighting up options on what to do next. If I were to stop working and do the full time course. I guess the hope or goal would be to firmly push through N2 level, have them patch some of the holes in my own language studies and in an ideal world, be N1 test ready or at least approaching that and/or self reliant enough that walking myself to the finish line wouldn’t be too hard.
A couple of “I don’t even know what I should do regarding this” points:
Visa: I’m 36 years old, from Australia and on a instructor visa and was lucky enough to be given 3 years this time. I spoke to the school and they only help with student visa sponsorship if your doing a 1 year+ course. The person I spoke to didn’t really seem to know what might be the best course of action for my particular case. Seems like I just might have to talk to immigration directly about my plans/situation?
Apartment: Currently in a Leopalace organised by my dispatch company, in Chiba. If I, decided to not re-sign to continue working with them for the next school year. Is it somewhat viable to just roll the apartment lease over to myself? Another headache that I would need to solve if I decided to study in Fukuoka for 20 weeks/5 months. Moving for the short term seems wasteful but moving out and putting stuff into storage and only taking essentials for the 20 weeks seems like an idea. The only real big pieces of furniture I have are a PC desk, chair and small shelf unit. And freeze/pausing my utilities?
Would that length of time warrant any kind of formal moving or changing of address?
Also if my visa status changes and I stop working, would I just start receiving postcards requesting payments for national healthcare/pension and taxes again? Currently its all just deducted from my salary.
I guess a slightly less drastic plan would be to do a similar course in Tokyo but the commute from Chiba would still be too far realistically for most places. Maybe east side Tokyo.
Cost: doing calculations how much savings I would need; Course cost + accommodation + food + mobile plan would continue + would nenkin/healthcare and tax payments still roll in? Is there anything else I’m not covering?
I was thinking about withdrawing my nenkin so far to help cover costs and I understand that a big no-no if you want to stay here permanently which, I honestly don’t and might just request an exemption from future pension payments.
I’m really hitting the limit on being able to endure spending more time as an ALT. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. Honestly pretty lost on what to do next. It was just acquiring the language and enjoy the country were my only real “to-dos” here and I’ve sufficiently traveled and seen most of what I’ve wanted.
by KDE_Viz