loan

Every major turning point in my life (Marist, St. Norbert, Sophia) was a pretty definitely positive one, bringing nice eustress and an exciting new place to explore (Chicago, Wisconsin, Japan). The trend ended with my _return_ to Wisconsin a little over a year ago. I’ve been whining about this for a while but finally I’m approaching another turning point and it looks to be a pleasant one. Wait, I should probably try to look at this past year more fairly. Firstly, I’ve been able to become closer to a lot of pretty excellent people: Hiroko’s at the top of that list in huge Sharpie. I got to reconnect with cousin Stephen. Also Jon and Ben, Peter, Oshkoshians hachi, Ann, and Brian, random Green Bay geeks Matt and Don, various IRC folk, including most recently and quite especially [Jules][1]. One of the major reasons for my recent relative happiness, outside of excitement about moving, is Project Soft Landing, a really mind-bending exercise in geekiness between Jules and me which you’ll be hearing about later. In addition to all that, I suppose this time has been a decent rest from adventures, and has allowed me to figure out what’s next. Had you asked me a while ago, I would have wanted to stay in Tokyo forever. I admit that’s still an alluring idea, but it’s likely that disenchantment would occur after living there for a couple of years. Indeed Hiroko seems right when she suggests that an annual visit to Japan would keep it fresh and appealing more than would living there. Seeking out new places would be better, and being here has let me find out which new place is next: Portland. I have been emailing back and forth with a guy about a low-paying but apparently otherwise rewarding Python programming job in Portland. I gave myself a crash-course in Python (which incidentally has made Project Soft Landing possible) and put together a demonstration for him. That situation could still go either way. But even without a job, I’m going, and Peter has pinky-sworn to come with me, at least on a trial basis. The moment he did, much of the apprehension I’d had about moving disintegrated. Hiroko and Ann both plan to come join me as soon as they can. It’s going to be excellent: having a challenging job, taking the rail around town, listening to my favorite music, shopping for obscure Japanese things, reading my book in one of a bajillion parks, working on code in some wireless-enabled joint. It’s good that I have a trip to DC, two RUSH concerts, and lots of planning to keep me moving around until then. Well, that’s much of what’s been going on in my head lately. It’s kind of nice to type it out. [1]: http://www.livejournal.com/users/julsey