Notes on Resuming my TEFLtastic Educatrix Career (with Toddler in Tow)

Notes on Resuming my TEFLtastic Educatrix Career (with Toddler in Tow)

Earlier this week, I found out that this particular blog of mine had somehow made it onto the improbably mammoth and random Top 2300 Travel Blogs list, clocking in at number 18 on the Teaching English Abroad category. Aside from calling it by the wrong 

What The Hell Am I Doing Here: Notes on End of Year Work Festivities in Shanghai

What The Hell Am I Doing Here: Notes on End of Year Work Festivities in Shanghai

  It’s Saturday and I’m at work. I’ve been here since, oh, 8 o’clock this morning and at the rate things are piling up, I doubt I’ll ever leave. Teaching on Saturdays is a new thing, something that was explicitly written into my contract as 

Who Needs A Comfort Zone Anyway? Building Character Abroad: The Employment Edition

Who Needs A Comfort Zone Anyway? Building Character Abroad: The Employment Edition

Back when I lived and worked in Canada, employers generally expected me to be qualified for my job. They wanted the certification from year-long+ accredited courses, plus, say five years of verifiable, solidly referenced on the job experience. This was difficult when I was 19, 

Notes on working in China (the bossing-teachers-around edition)

Notes on working in China (the bossing-teachers-around edition)

As you may have heard, I have changed jobs. By this, I mean I am no longer unemployed. Or at least, unemployed in the technical sense. I have a day job now, and it isn’t teaching. Nope, I’m back in the director’s chair again.   

Saying Goodbye AGAIN: The annoying heartbreak of being a teacher that nobody warns you about*

Saying Goodbye AGAIN: The annoying heartbreak of being a teacher that nobody warns you about*

*I was going to title this post Apostrophe to the End of Term (or, Isn’t it Byronic, don’t you think?) but decided it would be way too obscure and nerdy and not even all that clever. The cleverness factor would have been bumped up several notches, however, 

I May Have Just A Wee Bit Too Much on My Plate

I May Have Just A Wee Bit Too Much on My Plate

It’s just after 7:30am on an inexplicably cool morning. Shanghai is invisible under the fog. It’s just as well as I’m still in bed, under several layers of duvet, strong, lightly milked coffee in hand. I may or may not be staring at the wall 

Amber Roshay Moved Back to the US and Wrote About it (And Also Wrote a Book That We’re Giving Away Here)

Amber Roshay Moved Back to the US and Wrote About it (And Also Wrote a Book That We’re Giving Away Here)

Some of you might remember the lovely Amber Roshay from her interview last year. She was the one whose students had prepared an awesome and very emotional surprise party for her. She’s also a very good friend of mine- one who happened to leave Shanghai and move 

Hey Zhou: A Totally Impractical Guide to Hangzhou and Fuzhou

Hey Zhou: A Totally Impractical Guide to Hangzhou and Fuzhou

I’ve been on a bit of a ‘zhou bender in the past month, flitting around the Eastern seaboard of China with two 4-day stints in Hangzhou and one down in Fuzhou. Given this, I should be writing a top ten list of places to visit, 

Hello, Dalian! A Totally Impractical Guide to That City up by Korea

Hello, Dalian! A Totally Impractical Guide to That City up by Korea

And by impractical, I really mean it this time. I have absolutely no information that might be of use to you here, unless you get sent up for work at the very last minute, as I did, and need to know where you can get 

Notes on my Supposed Unemployment: The September Edition

Notes on my Supposed Unemployment: The September Edition

Remember how I’ve been going on and on for months about being unemployed?  How it felt weird to be so suddenly unstructured and aimless after decades of chronic employment? Yeah, well, I lied. Kind of. I am unemployed, by the day-job definition of employment. At 

14 Notes on teaching English in a Chinese university, in the middle of a quiet burnout and impending unemployment

14 Notes on teaching English in a Chinese university, in the middle of a quiet burnout and impending unemployment

1.  Two weeks ago I renewed my gym membership, which I had let lapse about six months ago.     Sometime last Autumn, I had  figured that the five flights of stairs I had to climb 8 or so times a day between classroom and 

3 Short Scenes from the Chinese Classroom: Why I Probably Can Never Go Home Again

3 Short Scenes from the Chinese Classroom: Why I Probably Can Never Go Home Again

Scene 1.   ‘Happy April Fish Day, teacher!’ My students are knee deep in plastic snack-sized dried fish wrappers. It’s April 1st. There’s a huge grocery bag three quarters full of unopened dried fish packets under one of the rows of desks. It was a