Who Has Two Thumbs and a Permanent Resident Visa?

Photo taken by The Boyfriend, who is just bossy enough as a photographer to go pro…

This guy!

Yes, after a very long process, a goodly amount of money and no small amount of stress and needless fretting, I am officially a Permanent Resident of Japan.

What this means for me is that my residence here is more secure. I don’t have to renew the visa every three years as before, and I don’t have to worry about the unfortunate confluence of an expired visa and an expired job contract again. If I do find myself out of work, I’ll be able to take time getting a new one without wondering how I’ll pack up my whole life and return to the United States in ignominy. [1] In addition, there are more types of work available to me. Previously, my visa status had me as a teacher or a professor, and that was what I was legally allowed to do. Now I could do anything, provided someone wants to hire me for it. If I were so inclined, this would make it easier to start a business, as well as buy property and gods know what else.

All told, this buys me some amount of security, which makes me very happy. One less thing to worry about.

That’s me, baby.

If you’ve come to this page to find out about getting a PR visa, here’s what I did: I got a lawyer. More expensive, yes, but this process is complicated and long and drawn-out, and I wanted to minimize the chances of screwing everything up, especially considering I had a time limit in front of me. My guy was Kawazoe Satoshi, who took care of everything and was very patient when I started to get twitchy and nag him for details. [2]

Also, I need to thank The Boyfriend, who stood as guarantor for me despite really not being comfortable doing so. This was partly because he didn’t like the idea of handing over personal information to some lawyer he didn’t know, but also because he was worried that the whole process might fail because he wasn’t financially or professionally stable enough for the Department of Justice. Fortunately, he was acceptable to the Powers That Be. He stepped up for me and helped make this possible. Good man.

Speaking of jobs, there’s an update there as well – Ritsumeikan Uji hasn’t gotten rid of me yet. While my regular contract does expire in April, I was taken on board by the International Baccalaureate program at our school, where I will be teaching Literature and Theory of Knowledge for at least another two years. For those of you not familiar with the IB Diploma program, it’s an internationally administered course that puts high school students through two years of rigorous academic work in various fields of study. It’s not for the faint of heart, and that applies to teachers as well as students, but the kids who come out of it are more likely to propel themselves to greater success in the years after high school.

So I’ll be teaching literature, which is exactly what it sounds like, and Theory Of Knowledge, which I’m learning about at the moment. Basically it’s a “How do we know what we know?” kind of course, which has the potential of making me absolutely insufferable on Facebook for a while. My apologies in advance.

All of this means that my 2012 Existential Crisis has come to a close, and has done so in a good and satisfying way. No doubt I’ll come up with something else to worry about at some point, but right now I’m just going to revel in my stability.

Pictured: My idea of stability

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[1] Which is still an option, mind you. Just not quite as likely as before.
[2] Of which there were, usually, none. Immigration is kind of a black hole – all the documents get submitted and then you wait until they’re done. You have no idea how they’re progressing, and no matter how you nag your lawyer, he won’t be able to tell you anything more than, “Just be patient.”