The 6th month hiatus

So now that I have gotten into the basics of how EF works as a franchise within China, I can at least go into more of the details of my return to the land of the big chicken (if you look at an atlas map of just China, it’s shaped like a big chicken… Taiwan and Hainan being the feet, Urumqi area being the tail, and the north east being the head.) Certainly being home for 6 months wasn’t the original idea. That doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate the time that I did have at home, and part of me believes that in the 6 months I wasn’t mentally ready to come back. Also, I wanted to be fully healthy, for a couple of months before I returned. When I left HohHot, I was probably at least a little jaded in the sense that I was emotionally attached to Scott. Far more than I should have been for someone who was my boss. I am a little concerned about that thinking about it now, because I obviously hadn’t learned from my Farm and Wilderness fiasco. Granted, I had told Chris from F&W something in confidence that he then took and used it against me in hiring me back from my knee medical leave. That’s neither here nor there now, though, because as a result, things would have been a lot different had I actually gone back there. I would have never had gone to the Glen, which was a pivotal moment for me (and wouldn’t have gone to TSC either). That’s a story for another day, though, and certainly not for this blog. With Scott, I had at least tested the waters a bit before I disclosed anything, however, to my firm belief now, I dove to deeply with him. I thought it was healthy, but looking back, I made all the wrong choices being friends with him. When I had gotten home, we had talked occasionally, kept him updated on the health process, letting him know that it was going to take longer than the original plan. I was also working on renewing my passport, and finally doing the last things of the wallet stolen on my birthday fiasco... like replacing my driver’s license. The passport was a disaster, as I had started the process in Beijing, but they couldn’t seem to get it right. My name had originally been spelled wrong on my passport, and the Beijing Embassy couldn’t seem to actually be able to read the paperwork properly. Figured the US state department would be able to read it. However, they kept making the same mistake. I was trying to get around the red tape in waiting and the local congressman said to make an appointment with the office, and all I needed was either airline tickets or a letter from my employer saying when I would be traveling, where I was working, and what I would be doing. I had agreed with Scott before I left, that I would work for him when he returned and he would let me know when he would need a teacher. We had agreed January seemed reasonable, but in order to get my passport for the paperwork, I needed him to write the letter. Scott couldn’t seem to pull himself together and couldn’t contact me with anything that would even suffice as something to get my paperwork done. So I re-tallied by actually getting his letterhead from another teacher I had worked with whom he had written a reference for, and filled in what I needed to do to still make my appointment without actually having to by return flights if I had no real plans yet of returning. At this point I really began to doubt his motives in bringing me back to work for him. I didn’t hear from him for months after he blew me off. That was in December, so I chalked it up to a bad idea, and enjoyed being home for the holidays, the first time in over a year. In January, I got sick again, and didn’t really seem to have much of a desire to go anywhere, as it seemed that we hadn’t actually solved the problem back in November. I ended up going to a naturopathic doctor and began to persue some other contacts that I had gotten myself and from some other friends. I had considered going to Chengdu, but the more that I talked to the friend that I knew that worked there they seemed to be in the process of management change, which I described below, usually not how you want to start out in a school. It’s always rough the first few months, as the new management tries to get accustomed to the ins and outs of that particular school. Plus, she said he didn’t really know what he was doing, and still nobody likes him, and we have a pretty similar taste in management style, so I took her word and continued my search. I followed up on a few other leads but never really seemed to get anywhere decent. I looked into working in other countries and domestically. I had things at home that always seemed to come up; mostly, there were some family things that I didn’t want to leave the country before they came up. I talked to some programs domestically but it seemed that the ones I wanted to do I needed a master degree for, and I’m not really sure I want to commit to TESOL teaching long term just yet. Thus I went back to looking abroad. In the beginning of March I went back to using Linkedin on a regular basis, where I joined a few discussion groups and stumbled across Martin, the DoS of school one in Xi’an. We got to talking about some basic teaching theories through the discussion boards we were both members of and then I added him to my network. Scott and I were having arguments back and forth over skype, over if I came back what visa I would come back on if I worked for him. He wanted to bring me in on a tourist visa, and I wanted to come in on the work visa, as I have spent two years in China, and have always been on the city resident and work visas, I felt that returning on a tourist visa was a slap in the face. And, truth be told, after months of not really talking, him ignoring me for my passport, and the argument of when I would start and the visa, all but illuminated that I didn’t want to talk to him anymore, but would rather see if I could get an interview with Martin. I asked if he was hiring, he said yes. We scheduled an interview, which lasted for about 2 and ½ hours. The interview was one of the glowing ones, that only seemed to end because it was nearly 2 am my time. I was given the job two days later, and I certainly didn’t need to think about it. I talked to some of the other teachers, and it all seemed to be the right fit, and now 6 weeks later, I’m in Xi’an. Once I returned, I got a new phone number. The DoSes talk at these meetings, which happen every 18 months or so. I have been in touch with the people I was closest with in China before I left, all except Scott. I’m sure he’ll find out eventually that I’m back, but he won’t actually be able to contact me regularly. Not really sure how I feel about it, but at this point in my life, I just need to move on. I’ve been very cautious at what I do and say with Stephen, the DoS at my school as a result as well. It’s hard to believe that a year ago this school, and Stephen specifically, didn’t want to hire me. A lot can happen in a year, I’m just not really sure what to make of the last year of my life just yet, nor do I really know how to size up the upcoming year. We’ll have to see how things progress.