So I am heading back to Japan in about a week. I am stoked beyond belief since it's been about two years since I was last back. For those who don't know I have a long history with Japan. I started studying Japanese in High School after a break from Spanish. I got interested in the language, and had a desire to work towards job working Internationally. Before long I had friends from Japan that I still keep in contact with to this day. And, some unfortunately that I have lost touch with...
In college, I continued to study then went abroad for year at Chukyo Daigaku in Nagoya. It was here that I got to hang out till late singing Karaoke and watching the Olympics in Japanese. T'was quite a combo if you ask 2009 TravelMerc. This was one of the best experiences in college that I would recommend to anyone. Traveling abroad in school is definitely worth it!
I came back to the states to finish up my last semester at The University of Iowa. I graduated with my B.B.A degree in Economics, and a Japanese minor. I knew I wanted to go back before I finished that last semester. So I did what any hungry ambitious college grad would do. I sent a bunch of resumes online, went to the Career forum in Boston, and decided to take a job teaching English. I did this for two years while studying the Language, and living/breathing/experiencing way more of the culture. I was able to take these lessons when I decided to come back to the U.S.
In 2012, I knew I wanted to get back into the financial services field so I took a translation/ hr job in the Chicagoland area as way of transitioning back into the states. I spent a little over a year in Chicago, which is an awesome city with an energy on Friday night that is hard to describe. Then the big move for me came in 2013 to AZ getting back into the financial field where I get an opportunity to use Japanese at work.