Tuesday, July 25, 2006

My Feline/Carrie/My Interview


Finally found someone to watch my cat while I am gone, Carrie of all people. God I love that woman, we may not be together any longer but nothing is ever going to change that. I have no problem telling her I love her any longer, Just because a relationship didn't work out doesn't mean you can't love them anymore, she understands that I have to go, but who knows, the future is always a mystery. I had my job interview early this morning and spoke so long with the guy that I ran out of cell phone minutes, we had almost finished and things look promising. He should be calling me back tonight so we can finalize things. After that the dean of the school has to call me to officially hire me and then it's on. Turns out they are going to cover my flight over there, what a sweet deal, I mean if I get this job a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This place is going to even feed me three times a day on weekdays, I get weekends off, a nice apartment, nearly 700 dollars a month. I would also be able to renew my contract after the year is up and since I want to go to school in Wu Han this makes allot of sense. The way things are going everyone will be saying goodbye to me pretty soon. I have also managed to get back into comic books thanks to my old pal Andy. I figured that is about the only thing I will be able to have over there from America. He will be sending me several titles every month and many of them will be number one issues, so happy to be getting the new gargoyles book. Feels great to be on a comic book shop again, age stops in a comic book shop. Anyway that's all I have for right now, If I get a call from Mr. Mitchell tonight I'll update tomorrow

Friday, July 21, 2006

WuHan

Got the best offer so far in Wu Han, exactly where I wanted to go. This place will not only give me my own apartment but they will feed me three times a day too. Prolly all I have to pay for is my utilities and internet, were talking 50 bucks a month tops. And at 5500 RMB (689.00 USD) that is money in the bank, the job is teaching younger children, but that has it's advantages. The DOS of the school is American and I am just waiting for him to call and give me my interview. China is 13 hours ahead so sometimes that is easier said than done, but we will just have to see how it goes. That's it for today.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Changchun

Got an offer from the Sino-American Denver School in Changchun. They're offer is alright and it's in the northeast. They seem more or less interested in hiring me based on my current credentials. I should have a phone interview with them Friday, people had one or two bad things to say about them but nothing major. If you guys are interested in seeing what they provide you can check out the link here http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/china/index.cgi?Read=16121. Changchun is also pretty close to Tonghua so I can check it out if I want. That's pretty much all I have to tell right now, I may have some emails tonight and will be able to update info then.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Scam

Turns out the job in Tonghua is a scam, everyone says to avoid it. Thought it was to good to be true, oh well back to the drawing board guess I am goign to wait for the guy from WuHan to contact me and see how that goes.

Job Offers

Alright guys here are the offers so far, there are two on the table. One is from an English school in the province of Hubei in the city of WuHan. This is nice because the university I want to go to is there, however, there are a few issues with this position. The pay is good at 5500 RMB (about 688.00 USD per month) however to get that I have to work 30 hours a week, 39 during the winter season. My days off are not guaranteed and may not be weekends, and I will only get one day off during the winter
Now 30-40 hours is an awful lot of hours to work for that wage compared to the other jobs I have seen online. I will be provided an apartment but I will have to share it with one other person at least, there is some furniture, I have to pay for power and any internet services (Power is about 25 bucks a month, can you believe that shit!). Meals are not provided. So this is a good paying job with very little benefits otherwise, WuHan also gets very hot during the summer, and winters are wet and wicked cold, occasional snow as well.
The second offer is in the province of Jilin in the city of Tonghua. This is in the north eastern part of China where as WuHan is centrally located. This job pays a little less at 4000 RMB (About 500 USD). However, to get that I will work no more than 20 hours a week and I am guaranteed weekends off. I also get a personal apartment, they say at the most I may have to share with one other person, maybe. Now here is the clincher for this job, everything is covered and the apartment is fully furnished. I also get a TV and a computer will be provided for me with free broadband. This is at one of the royal English schools in Tonghua, which by the way is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen as it has many forest and nature reserves. I have inquired as to universities in the area but have not received a reply. Now get this, this place has snow from October to April and there is no way I am passing up snow 6 months of the year if I can help it. Also the school will provide me one meal a day; I’ll take less dough to have all those extra benefits. I plan on taking this job as soon as possible; I am just waiting for them to reply back. That’s all so far, I have a course to go finish so this is the only post for right now.

The Reason


Hello all, I am creating this blog so my family can keep up with my progress in regards to moving abroad. This blog will continue when or if I get there, so if you want to know what is going on come here I will try to post something everyday. However, I may be plenty busy so perhaps as little as once a week. I plan on being myself so I will probably swear a great deal (Sorry Grandma, but I literally swear every third word), Sorry but if anyone has a problem with that then don't read the blog, but also don't plan on getting any personal emails answered quickly. So now that that's over lets get to my first post. Yes I realize I used a misspelled version of the word fleeing but that is really because I only want you guys to be able to find this blog (for now at least).


Now as many of you know I am attempting to leave this place and move to china for an undisclosed period of time, and many of you have asked why I intend to do so. I have given all of you a similar answer but the look I tend to get back is one of misunderstanding. So, I intend to give my official answer right now. The main reason is simply this country, this place is really fucked up right now. Not just because we are at war and the economy is garbage, those things have much to do with it in the long run though. This country puts many strange ideas in the heads of it's citizens and requires a great deal from them to be successful. Without a degree of any kind I won't be able to get by in life, I can barley do so as it is.

I am 28 years old and have made some bad decisions in my life, I realize that where I am now is in at least some way my fault, however I wasn't exactly given the same chances in life that many others were, and perhaps I was given more than some. Should I have finished school? Yeah of course I should have but in the end all I would have is a degree in graphic arts that would still get me nowhere down here, maybe I should have chosen a different profession earlier on but I really couldn't afford it as I was forced to pay for school on my own, Personally I believe a students tuition should be covered one way or another and there were certain things that were done that prevented that, I won't go any further into this right now.

Should I have wasted 6 years with Carrie? Although I wish I hadn't I believe it was necessary for my growth as an adult. Carrie simply realized something about this area at least before I did, I think if your going to start over you had better do more than move to Houston, and if she had not sprung it on me so suddenly I may have been able to settle some affairs and go with her. Would that have saved our relationship? I doubt it, Carrie and I grew into very different people while we were together, I had a problem with many of the things she was doing with herself and her life and she prolly felt the same way about me. But we loved each other and I think to a certain extent we still do, things will never be the same between us and it bothers me that she left me for some one armed hillbilly, but what can I do? I may do some things differently if I had it all to do over again, but wouldn't we all?

I have done many things in my life that I am not proud of, I have lied, cheated, I've been a petty thief and a crook just to try and get by in life because I have never had enough, or maybe I just never had what I thought I deserved. I worked very hard for a number of years and have nothing to show for it but a vehicle that I never intended to pay a dime for, yet somehow 10's of thousands of my own dollars have gone towards it, and a house full of furniture that by all rights should have been repoed years ago. Did I get myself into some of these things? Of course. Did Carrie get me into some of these things? Shit yeah. Did my parents? Yeah. Regardless my life is the shambles it is and nothing can be done about how it got that way, the only thing I can do is try to make it better, but can I do that here? Nope I don't think I can, I make too much to get financial aid, too little to really be able to afford school and support myself, not to mention degrees in this country are just really expensive. Not to mention I hate my job, and by the way I wish everyone would really quit trying to make me like it, that won't happen and I think that is also a huge problem in this country. People simply give up and give in to easily, just some how trick themselves into thinking they enjoy going to some bullshit job everyday that doesn't pay you anything, doesn't care about you, and would sooner replace you with someone that doesn't know what they are doing just to pay them less.

However if I move to China (Or a similar Asian country. Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia etc.) I can teach up to the university level. I have always really wanted to be a teacher, it took me a while to realize that but now it's what I know I want to do. Not only that but I really don't need a degree. I will have a cert for teaching English as a second language and my passport and that is fine with them. Not only that but I can go to university there and get my degree in education for anywhere from 6-8 grand, if any of you have any doubts about the university check it out here http://www.whu.edu.cn/en/. I will make good money over there (About 500 a month). That may not sound like allot but in china you can live like a king for that, all of my living expenses will be covered by the school I work for. I can finally in a way live like I feel I deserve to, and in a way like I feel every human being should be able to, I'll be able to afford thing, maybe send some money home to my parents for taking pity on me all these years. I would also hope that I would meet a woman there. If I can do this I don't see many bad things happening in my life, when I do come back to the states I will have a degree and jobs that I will enjoy will be much easier to come by and if I do things right I can actually bring some money home. I am afraid it is nearly 5am and I have work. This was a long first post but the next ones will be a bit shorter