This is the End...

"This is the end, Beautiful friend
This is the end, My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end...
It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end" (alwaysontherun.net)

After much thought, and a weekend from hell, I have decided to hang 'em up. I am going back to NY. I need to leave after two things happened that resulted in what could quite possibly be one of the biggest fuckovers of all time this side of Jason Giambi.

As you all know I left Japan a few weeks ago to attend the funeral of my dead grandfather. Shortly before he passed I was hired by an eikaiwa in Kichijoji which will from here on out remain un named but be known as JO, short for Jack Offs. JO was unhappy that I had to go but understood. They also advised me to return in time to renew my visa by December 6th, yesterday. That was the day it expired. So, in gratitude for their words of kindness and understanding I took the shortest trip home that was humanly possible. I returned to work the day after my plane landed. Jet lagged as all hell and unable to think but ready to work. It was, however, not enough. In looking at my flight itinerary for the trip I miscalculated the day I would land at Narita by one day. See, when you fly from Narita to NY you land the same day you took off, otherwise known as the "Groundhog's Day Effect." When you fly from NY to Japan you miss an entire day all together. I made the mistake of thinking the date stayed the same. Small mistake, or atleast one would think.

So I had Miho call the school and tell them my dilemma. Once again they proved to be a good group of people and said no problem. I return to school on Tuesday, Dec. 1st and they tell me I have to work Thursday and Friday. Days I am supposed to have off because I am working for two schools and those are the days I work at the other one. So I tell them as kindly as possible I understand their situation and I am sure we can come to some sort of reasonable solution like me working almost the entire day Thursday and a half day on Friday.

The problem was that I had to go to their Shibuya school and pick up my visa forms and such. The school in Shibuya is only open from noon, same as the one in Kichijoji. If I have to work full days both days how am I to get the paperwork and get to immigration before my visa expires? They come up with a reasonable solution, one that has me going to the Shibuya school at 9pm to pick up the documents on Thursday night. Then going to immigration Friday morning so that I can still work on both Thursday and Friday all day. I agree to that because it is a very simple, easy way to do things.

My other problem though was that I had to figure out what to do about the other school, which pretty much kept me from starvin gto death for a bit of time. I feel more indebted to them than anyone. Always ready to help me out no matter what. On the other hand, these people in Kichijoji are giving me a visa. So I owe them a bit of gratitude too. After discussing this with my manager she agreed tat it was a tough call and that she should talk it over with the lady who runs JO. She calls her and the lady fires me. So I say "OK I will work whenever you want me to. No problem, I did not honestly think it was a big deal or I would not have brought it up. I am sorry, my mistake. Just a simple misunderstanding." The manager agrees with me and takes my case to the leader of JO. She grudgingly accepts my apology and we are back in business within minutes.

My manager in Kichijoji is incredibly sick, to the point she has no voice for several days. Yet she still comes to work everyday like the true team player she is and then effectively puts the proverbial nail in my Japan coffin, if you will. She gets me sick, not just a bit mind you. I was in the hospital. I had no voice either. So Sunday, with Miho at her parents place, and a company policy in my contract that states "email is not an acceptable form of communication with us. You must contact by phone no matter what the circumstance." Miho left for her parent's place before I woke up. She didn't know I lost my voice yet. neither did I. It was a bit scratchy when we went to sleep Saturday night, which I spent out for a bit with some friends.

I woke up and could not speak at all. There was nothing but unintelligible scratchy noises coming from my mouth. Not an effective way to communicate to someone who barely speaks English, that person being my manager. I manage to conjure up what's left of my vocal cords after drinking a gallon of hot tea to call my manager at 2pm. I was scheduled to start work at 1pm, so I can see that this would be a problem. However, any reasonable person would say to bring a doctor's note or some proof of sickness, as if my lack of voice wasn't any clue to how bad it was. My sickness reached it's height when Miho took me to Okubo Hospital Sunday night. The doctor diagnosed me with some horrible Acute flu-like thing and told me not to get out of bed for a week. He gave me all the necessary meds and documentation of my illness for my employer. He even gave his personal cell number to us so they could call him to verify.

The next day, yesterday, Miho calls my manager for me, as my voice still is not functioning. She tells my manager the skinny and she says she will tell her bosses, who already sent me an email saying "We cannot accept you to work here anymore. Of course we understand you don't get sick everyday.... but we don't want to worry always if you come or not. If you really wanted to work at JO (name changed for purposes o fnot seeing a lawyer at Narita), you should have come to school 20 minutes before class...Please return our company registration and other documents which you got from Shibuya. We cannot help you with your working visa." This email was sent the day before my visa expired. Nice.

So Miho goes to the other school in Jiyugaoka, the school only has 3 branches, where the owner of JO always works and tried to explain the situation to her and even brought all the documents and the garbage bag like sack of meds the doctor gave me. The lady tells Miho to get off the property and that if we want to contact her further we should do so through a lawyer. How's that for compassion. When Miho asks why the lady responds "He is never here. He left right after we hired him for a funeral, and came back a day late and now he is sick? This is not acceptable."

So let me get this straight...you are holding the death of my grandfather against me. You are now saying that leaving the country to go to his funeral was wrong, and that I came back a day late? You have a copy of my itinerary. You should've noticed I made the mistake in saying what day I would be back. In all fairness it was a small detail I should've noticed, so I will not hold it against them. My fault. But I cannot travel through time. You should have looked at the itinerary when I notified you I was coming back a day later than I thought I would. Or am I expected to manifested a time warp and "beam" myself to your front door Star Trek style? Then she complains I am sick? Your moronic manager got everyone that works for her sick by contaminating the entire building with her virus. Again, these are things I cannot control. Granted they all happened at once, and with incredibly bad timing. But any reasonable person could see that these are not intentional things and would atleast try to listen before rushing to judgement.

So JO left me up shit's creek without a paddle, so to speak. That means I technically have overstayed my visa, or did I? Miho called immigration and they said not to worry, I can just get a 14 days extension of my current visa to give me time to "get outta dodge." I will personally return the application documents to the owner of JO, who said I applied for a visa under false pretenses (only she did not say it that intelligently because she would not even know how to form that sentence in English or Keigo) in spite of the fact her signature and Hanko are all over the forms. I could screw her over if I wanted to. Involving unions, lawyers, etc. But it is not worth it because of how much it would cost. Would rather not see the ugly side of Japanese society so I can keep my still somewhat idealistic view of this beautiful country.

Miho and I are now engaged. We are going to make this work. If it is the last thing I do. I am going back to school to finish my degree with a double major....Japanese and Finance. That way when I return to here I will be able to support her fully in the manner she deserves. I will also be back in Japan fairly soon to "study abroad" hehe. My college, Stony Brook University, has a study abroad program with Chiba University...less than an hour from Tokyo, and my beautiful Miho.

It is not goodbye beautiful, it is more of a seeya later, as she put it last night through her tears.