Tag: EFL

It’s been a while, Shanghai
November 30, 2017

It’s been a while, Shanghai

  Well now. Shanghai. Yo. I’m flying in to Pudong International sometime tomorrow afternoon, after nearly four years away from China. I don’t tend to return to cities or countries I’ve lived in: It’s been nearly ten years since Istanbul and seventeen since Cape Town. …

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A Totally Impractical Guide to Changing Everything All At Once (Again)
October 11, 2015

A Totally Impractical Guide to Changing Everything All At Once (Again)

I should be studying right now. Four units into the first module of a master’s degree in applied linguistics, I’m painfully wrapping my head around the idea of a lexeme’s paradigm (not to be confused with a gangsta’s paradise, though I will admit that I …

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Notes on Resuming my TEFLtastic Educatrix Career (with Toddler in Tow)
June 25, 2015

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 …

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A Totally Impractical Guide to an Out of Body Weekend in Jǐnán
March 27, 2013

A Totally Impractical Guide to an Out of Body Weekend in Jǐnán

  After a few months’ hiatus from my ongoing whirlwind Tour de Chine (the Academic Route), I’m back on the road, hopping trains like a nerdy hobo and wearing butt-shaped grooves into creaky university chairs all over this fine nation. This past weekend, I went …

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A Totally Impractical Guide to a Sudden Jaunt to Liuzhou, Guangxi
December 17, 2012

A Totally Impractical Guide to a Sudden Jaunt to Liuzhou, Guangxi

Over the past decade or two, I’ve become quite adept at rolling with the punches. Most of my jobs have called for finely tuned improvisational skills and I’ve had plenty of opportunities to hone them. The other night, I dreamed that I was told I …

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Strangled Gasps of Creativity (or Why I’ll Probably Never Be a Published Author)
November 5, 2012

Strangled Gasps of Creativity (or Why I’ll Probably Never Be a Published Author)

  When I was 10, I was already the proud author of approximately a dozen unpublished novels. By unpublished, I mean, read only by myself- or perhaps by anyone who managed to sneak into my bedroom, haul the stacks of notebooks out from their not …

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Who Needs A Comfort Zone Anyway? Building Character Abroad: The Employment Edition
October 12, 2012

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, …

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A Totally Impractical Guide to an Emotionally Stunted Weekend in Hefei
September 24, 2012

A Totally Impractical Guide to an Emotionally Stunted Weekend in Hefei

The first time I went to Hefei,  the glorious provincial capital of ayi-central Anhui, about 3 or 4 years ago, I stepped off the D-train after four squishy hours onto the platform and was carried along in the swarm (because really, in China, in the train stations, it …

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A Totally Impractical Guide to an Intellectually Dirty Weekend in Nanjing
September 14, 2012

A Totally Impractical Guide to an Intellectually Dirty Weekend in Nanjing

I often (well, once every few months, which is technically often in geological terms) get emails from people asking me for advice on what to do in, say, Random Chinese City I Mentioned Once In a Post. Although I feel slightly honoured that someone actually …

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Notes on working in China (the bossing-teachers-around edition)
June 3, 2012

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.   …

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Saying Goodbye AGAIN: The annoying heartbreak of being a teacher that nobody warns you about*
May 28, 2012

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, …

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I May Have Just A Wee Bit Too Much on My Plate
May 14, 2012

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 …

18 Comments