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[denise]

I got my BA in the spring of '97 and, while stressing about what to do with my life, I saw a flyer in my local laundromat for a TEFL course. I went to their orientation session. I didn't sign up for that particular course, but it did get me interested. I started looking into courses & options (and working to save money for the course and the move abroad), and in the fall of 1999 I packed up and moved to Prague to begin what has been a thoroughly enjoyable career.

[greegor]

In 1995, I was working as a musician for a touring bar band. Mostly made my living that way, but supplemented my income as a small offset press operator. But that was in North Carolina, and that year disaster stuck. Our crackhead guitar player stole all our equipment to buy drugs. While we were chasing him down (we eventually got everything back except my drum kit), I discoveered that my "girlfriend" was not, in fact, my girlfriend; she'd been cheating on her boyfriend with me but she left me to get married to him (they're still together, weirdly), and as I was reeling from all this, a hurricane struck and destroyed the building where my bass player and I were sharing an apartment.

Severely depressed, I went with said bass player to live with his family for a few months on the Outer Banks, but found, adding insult to injury, that press operator work was drying up. Technology had replaced that particular skill. I found myself working as a maitainance guy at an apartment complex.

But I remembered a letter my sister had sent me. (Remembeer postal letters? Yeah, I'm that old.) She had sent me a page torn out of the Utne Reader, a magazine that is/was published in the U.S. It was an ad for New World Teachers, a place that did TEFL certificate courses. She reckoned it was a perfect job for me, and though I had agreed, at that time, the band was doing well. We had recently got noticed by producer John Custer and that would almost surely have lead to a recording deal.

But now, that band was in ruins, the singer and the bass player having decided to just move on to other projects. So I stayed on the Outer Banks for a spell to save money for the course, and once I'd done so, I moved down to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to do the course.

Once the course was finished, I had so little money that I couldn't even pay for bus fare to a job offer as close as San Luis Potosí, let alone make it back to the States. I had to find work locally or else starve to death on the beautiful Mexican beach. Either way was fine by me. I had enough money for a few bottles of tequila. Reckoned I could just drink myself to death. I was still pretty depressed, between the girlfriend and the band that came THIS CLOSE to hitting it big.

Turned out OK, obviously. I found work about a meter from where I did the TEFL course. Started that job in September, 1996 and I have remained employed and seen a good bit of the world ever since. It's been a pretty good career for the most part.