[Troo]

It's dreadfully hard to learn anything if you're unmotivated. Why not try spending the next year teaching yourself Japanese rather than rotting in a basement and, if you get on well with it, see what you can do to get a year's working visa to Japan?

I've heard variously that it's nigh-impossible to work in Japan without a college degree, and that it's not so hard if you want to do bar work, so seek advice on that point. Certainly a university degree is a huge benefit, and if Japan is where you really want to be you'll knuckle down, study hard, and get one. On the other hand, education in the USA isn't cheap. Unless you're willing to dig yourself a large debt hole, or have minted parents who can support you, it might not be an option.

Basically now's the time to think long and hard about the future. If it helps you any, I do not have a degree, yet have had a succession of reasonably-paid jobs. In spite of whatever modest personal success I have had, I am not in a position to easily relocate to Japan - my best bet is if I marry my degree-educated fiancee and he chooses to go work the JET programme. Even then I would have to work pretty hard to make enough money freelancing as a travel writer to support two of us living together.

I've had so many friends in the US who cling to the dream of moving to another country just to escape whatever small town they live in, and I've said this to each and every one of them: If you can't even make a move to the nearest big city, what makes you think you can survive abroad?

There's a life out there for you. There's a life out there for everyone. And I do not have the right to tell you that your life isn't in Japan. But I have the responsibility to advise you that it won't be easy.

Speak to your nearest Japanese Embassy to find out what your options are. Do your research online. Don't stick to single sources of information (for anything in life, in fact) - seek out two or three sources to confirm the same fact just to be certain. Be sure also that, when checking things online, you're checking details which pertain to your country - for example, the UK has a visa exemption arrangement with Japan which means I could go there for up to six months without having to seek a visa. I would imagine the US has something similar, but double-check this.

Best of luck!