Starting Anew in 2022

 Happy Holidays Everyone!

Today's blog post is about my plans for 2022; specifically with changing my career. This story takes a bit of time, but please stay with me. 

In 2016, I moved from the USA to Korea to begin teaching English as a second language. What followed was one of the worst years of my life. I ended up getting placed at a blacklisted school, an English kindergarten to be precise, and generally had a pretty terrible time. 

My boss was incompitent, the company stole money from me, and nothing I was promised from my recruiter, such as a furnished apartment, internet, etc., was kept. 

In the middle of August, I was placed in an apartment with no working A/C unit in the hottest city in Korea with no help, no internet, no friends, and half of my belongings were still at the airport.

Well, y'know what they say: misery builds character. Even with the misery of work and life I completed that whole contract start to finish.

Despite that horrible first year of Korea, I met amazing people. People who went on trips with me. People who helped me find cool spots to hang out. People who let me join their bar trivia team. People who grew my passion for MtG. People who were nice. People who I am still friends with even after I left there in 2019. 

One of them even convinced me to give Korea and teaching another chance and to work with him at his school in 2017. Having no job lined up for when I left, I said, "Sure." 

At my second school, life was immediately better. I was able to grow and flourish, have a stable income, and even make friends with my boss and his family. Amazing what a change of scenery can do. 

After 3 years, I hit my limit for teaching children. The passion wasn't there for me. 

The same friend who helped me get the job at his school in Korea had moved to Japan in 2018. He worked for a company that mostly taught adults and offered to help me get set up in Japan. I said, "Sure."

2019 to 2021 was mostly fine until the company I worked for wanted that sweet, sweet, overly-saturated children education money. I left Korea to stop teaching kids and here I was going back to that. To top off this downward turn, after increasing the student numbers at my homebranch by a significant amount, the company offered to pay me less with even less bonuses... 

When offered that new contract, I said, "No."

Now as 2022 comes around, I have finished taking professional certification courses on Data Analytics and Transmedia Storytelling. I am hoping to take those new skills to a new career in 2022 as the ESL career in the world has changed from education to babysitting. Noble to some, but not to me. 

Here's to a new year and new opportunities.