Looking back
I like looking back on past forum posts and journal entries. I get to see the news of the day then and what my plans are for my future. All of the posts have one thing in common: they were all wrong.
In one post, I laid out odds on what country I would be teaching in next. Obviously they weren't real. I was just using them to show which country is more likely to be my next stop. I think I ended up deleting it at some point because I cannot find it. Czech Republic and Hungary were big favorites. Poland was next on the list with Germany a bit behind. In case things did not work out, long shots included Turkey, Russia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Virtual impossibilities included (in order of likelihood) going back to South Korea, committing suicide, or living with my mother.
Notice that in all of that, Spain was never mentioned. As a matter of fact, it didn't even come up with the idea of teaching there until April 2013 when I saw how many advertisements there were relative to other EU countries. I had been talking about teaching in Central/Eastern Europe since early 2012. After some deliberation, I realized that I really didn't want to live in Poland. You really had to be bilingual German/English to teach English in Germany. My friend recommended me to not teach in Hungary. So, I committed to Czech Republic should I plan to teach in Central or Eastern Europe. I started firing out CELTA applications for Czech Republic and Spain. For a bit, it was a pretty close call between the two. Basically, I picked the first country to get back to me. International House in Barcelona got back to me with an acceptance e-mail first. It wasn't my first choice. I applied to Seville, but they were full and Valencia wasn't running a CELTA class during August. Prague's CELTA class for August was full and I had little interest in any city in CR aside from that. Barcelona was there and I just took it.
I finished my CELTA and figured that I would lock up a job pretty quickly given my credentials. For some reason, it didn't work out right away. Hell, my odds of going to one of the backups was pretty damn high after all of the failure. I could have ended up in Thailand after all and had 50-1 odds on that list that I made.
My final interview in Valencia secured my place in Spain. If I was in China, I wouldn't be celebrating just yet due to the paperwork involved and the shadiness of the locals when dealing with westerners. In China, I am a migrant worker who has no leverage in any legal matter and can be pushed around pretty easily. At least in Spain, I'm a citizen living in a developed, democratic country which gives me legal rights that make it less likely for me to get fucked over.
Now, I'm living in a country where I don't have to run to the police station every year to get a new visa. I can live in my own place and hopefully have some stability in my life. I can't be kicked out of the country by my employer or the government. Even if I do lose or quit a job, I can go on living there. This stability is very much needed and is a huge step forward in my life. It'd be nice for life to become a bit more predictable.
In one post, I laid out odds on what country I would be teaching in next. Obviously they weren't real. I was just using them to show which country is more likely to be my next stop. I think I ended up deleting it at some point because I cannot find it. Czech Republic and Hungary were big favorites. Poland was next on the list with Germany a bit behind. In case things did not work out, long shots included Turkey, Russia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Virtual impossibilities included (in order of likelihood) going back to South Korea, committing suicide, or living with my mother.
Notice that in all of that, Spain was never mentioned. As a matter of fact, it didn't even come up with the idea of teaching there until April 2013 when I saw how many advertisements there were relative to other EU countries. I had been talking about teaching in Central/Eastern Europe since early 2012. After some deliberation, I realized that I really didn't want to live in Poland. You really had to be bilingual German/English to teach English in Germany. My friend recommended me to not teach in Hungary. So, I committed to Czech Republic should I plan to teach in Central or Eastern Europe. I started firing out CELTA applications for Czech Republic and Spain. For a bit, it was a pretty close call between the two. Basically, I picked the first country to get back to me. International House in Barcelona got back to me with an acceptance e-mail first. It wasn't my first choice. I applied to Seville, but they were full and Valencia wasn't running a CELTA class during August. Prague's CELTA class for August was full and I had little interest in any city in CR aside from that. Barcelona was there and I just took it.
I finished my CELTA and figured that I would lock up a job pretty quickly given my credentials. For some reason, it didn't work out right away. Hell, my odds of going to one of the backups was pretty damn high after all of the failure. I could have ended up in Thailand after all and had 50-1 odds on that list that I made.
My final interview in Valencia secured my place in Spain. If I was in China, I wouldn't be celebrating just yet due to the paperwork involved and the shadiness of the locals when dealing with westerners. In China, I am a migrant worker who has no leverage in any legal matter and can be pushed around pretty easily. At least in Spain, I'm a citizen living in a developed, democratic country which gives me legal rights that make it less likely for me to get fucked over.
Now, I'm living in a country where I don't have to run to the police station every year to get a new visa. I can live in my own place and hopefully have some stability in my life. I can't be kicked out of the country by my employer or the government. Even if I do lose or quit a job, I can go on living there. This stability is very much needed and is a huge step forward in my life. It'd be nice for life to become a bit more predictable.