We're in the Kansai area, were you with the JET program by chance? Not that I'm in a position to give advice, but there's no need to wait to find a project to work on or to start your own. I found the best way to learn was actually building stuff. Hell, I spent the better part of last year building a web app that I later abandoned. It was still a great learning experience for me, and I learned a lot more than I would have just reading tutorials.