Who is the Most Significant Person in your Life?
In my surfing of the Internet today, this question has came up on 3 different occasions, so taking that as a sign I decided to answer that question for you all. Now I want to take the question a little farther, because it is far to simple to say my children or my Mom or some other family member. So I present the question like this: “Who is the Most Significant Person in your Life, at this time, who is not a family member?”
It is an easy question to answer for me, since I do not have a lot of social interaction outside of my family. The person I am talking about and myself crossed paths about a year ago. Was our meeting pre planned, destiny, or just a coincidence? You decide!
As many of you know I am planning to move to Hokkaido, Japan very soon. Why? It is not an easy question to answer. Some will call it a unsatisfied feeling of belonging in my current place. Some will call it an Escapist mentality, and some will say it’s just another path your life was meant to lead. I lived in Japan for about 3 years, I met my wife of 17 years there. Every time I have arrived in Japan from the first to several times afterward, I have always had a feeling of “Ahhhhh finally home”. Do not ask me where this feeling comes from, for I cannot answer that. But I cannot ignore the feeling of belonging and comfort that I experience when I am there.
The last time I was in Japan was in 1996. I have never been able to go back due to taking care of family members or career. My wife and children have been back several times since I have. We have talked of moving back many times, but due to circumstances which I have previously mentioned it was just not the right time.
Circumstances started to change for us last year, the family members no longer needed our care and in October of last year I lost my job of 7 years. So the talk became serious about moving to Japan. We had a lot of concerns, mainly our children and how it would affect them. The discussion went on for a long while discussing the pros and cons. Finally a decision was made to go for it. My children are still young at 8 and 4, and have been spoken to in Japanese since they were born. The adaptation will be much easier for them than myself. Not to mention a Elementary school was begging us to come and enroll our children, and even offered us a place to live at a very very cheap price for as long as we have children in their school.
Getting back to the original question. The job I will be trying to do when I arrive in Japan is teach English, preferably to children, but any age will be fine. I have over 1000 classroom hours of teaching experience, but not English. I feel that this will be an exciting avenue to make a living in Japan, and if my wife needs to work, then we have that option also. I got on the Internet and searched for English schools in Hokkaido Japan, and my searches led me to many of the big name schools, but one Independent school caught my attention called Snowman Bei Kaiwa. I decided to call the owner by phone to get some information about Hokkaido and teaching English in Japan. I left a message on his answering machine and told him of my situation, and I received a email the next day from him.
The owner of this English school happened to be an American and we developed a Internet friendship over the last year. He is the most significant person, other than a family member in my life at this time, not only for the information that he gave me about Hokkaido and teaching English in Japan, but it has developed into much more than that. He is a spiritual person like myself, but not in the traditional sense. There are many similarities in his and my life, and he has given me much more support than I ever could have asked for in many aspects of life in general.
It is rare that we meet a person of this nature in our lives, a teacher if you will or just a confidant. We must cherish these types of friendships, because they don’t happen very often. I think to the old saying “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” We have never met in person, although the time is drawing near, to when we will meet face to face, in a setting that some say is one of the most beautiful in the world. I can’t wait, and am looking forward to that day, soon to come in the future. Snowman; Thank you my friend!
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My pleasure, Charlie. See ya all soon.
By the way, the Russian Language Comments that I have seen on this site recently say Orignal Information from Charles Hamel. How’s that for a kicker? Bye for now.