Job Discussion Forums

[Calories]

I don't get it? You are almost twice my age and think like a 12 year old. Just go! Geez. If your mom isn't convinced it's good, big deal. It's your life. I didn't convince either of my parents that what I was doing was a good idea. I didn't feel the need to either. I simply said "I've decided to go to China. Can I stay at your house over christmas and do you want to give me a ride to the airport?" Or something like that with a few more details and heart. They weren't happy but, they realised that I was going like it or not. It was their problem not mine.

That is all it takes to be independant. You say, "Mom, that's an interesting opinion you have there but I disagree and this is my life so, I'll see you when I get back." Forget the 'codepedant, unhealthy, manic depressive' psychobabble. That's why you won't do it. It's not why you can't. Besides, didn't you know that manic depression is the new black in the world of psychiatry? You don't have to agree with your diagnoses or treatment especially if you are or are capable of functioning and not being commited against your will.

[jsbankston]

Well, d*****, that's what I'm looking to do!

In the meantime, I write for a newspaper, just to keep my credits current. My column is supposdly the most popular thing in the paper, but it's a small, under-funded paper and I'm not paid for the work, yet I put my heart and soul into the work. I have no problem working if I like what I'm doing. I think one of the reasons I've been more or less shut down the last few years is I'm so d***** tired of doing these dead-end jobs that do not pay enough to cover my basic expenses and that waste my time. I'm just tired of doing pointless work.

Which, once again, is why I'm looking into the TEFL field. It's a way to work and see the world, as well as gain material for books.

[jsbankston]

I don't get it? You are almost twice my age and think like a 12 year old.

[Well, part of the problem is I let her treat me like a 12-year-old. That fulfills some need in her and I've apparently convinced myself I can't survive otherwise.]

Just go! Geez. If your mom isn't convinced it's good, big deal. It's your life. I didn't convince either of my parents that what I was doing was a good idea. I didn't feel the need to either. I simply said "I've decided to go to China. Can I stay at your house over christmas and do you want to give me a ride to the airport?" Or something like that with a few more details and heart. They weren't happy but, they realised that I was going like it or not. It was their problem not mine.

That is all it takes to be independant. You say, "Mom, that's an interesting opinion you have there but I disagree and this is my life so, I'll see you when I get back."

[I suspect her chief objection, other than she'd not be able to have me under her wing, is that she fears if everything went wrong oversesa she'd have to pay the price. I'd like to prove her wrong.]


Forget the 'codepedant, unhealthy, manic depressive' psychobabble. That's why you won't do it. It's not why you can't. Besides, didn't you know that manic depression is the new black in the world of psychiatry? You don't have to agree with your diagnoses or treatment especially if you are or are capable of functioning and not being commited against your will.

[Hmm. Didn't know that. I did conclude all by my little lonesome that the treatments I was involved with were hurting more than helping, like the meds that made me angry all the time, or those that caused me to nod off anytime I sat down, or the Wellbutrin that gave me hot flashes and caused me to shake like a doddering Ozzy Osbourne.

I frankly feel much better now that I took myself off those pills than I did when I was on them. I still have black moods now and again. They dewcend rather like headaches, but they go away just a quickly.I'm trying to train myself how to live with them without medication, with just behavior modification.

All I really need is one friggin' break in life and I should be okay.]

[Bayden]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[jsbankston]

A big chunk of it is that the sentiment of "there's just not that much that I care about doing" is exuded like a bad smell to HR people. They interview a tonne of people for every job. If there are two people with BAs and a bit of experience here and there and the only real difference is that one seems super excited about doing the job and the other- not so much, then the former gets the job.

[I believe you. I'm a good actor, but apparently not enough of one to hide the look in my eyes when I'm interviewing for another position I'm not excited about. Still, most of the jobs I've gotten I haven't really wanted--I just mouthed the right words they wanted to hear.

The one really great job I had, that paid well and used my abilities, that I sadly lost in the dot-com bust--my, my! That interview was like really good sex. I was into it, and so was everybody who interviewed me. Everybody was giving off excited vibes.

And I've not had that happen before or since.]

[jsbankston]

I should add that I have an adult case of ADD--no excuses--just there it is. The things that don't interest me, well, forget it. But when I am interested in something I can stay focused for hours.

[Bayden]

[jsbankston]

Like I said......................

I was sympathetic for a while but......

[Wouldn't you consider my plans to break free and go into TEFL a step forward?]

[Bayden]

[Like a Rolling Stone]

[jsbankston]

OK,
What IS your plan?

[I've only been researching a few weeks. I'm going about this very deliberately.]

What country have you decided to go to?

[Still weighing the pros and cons of each. ]

How much is the airfare?
How will you finance the initial journey?

[Probably with quick money from a crap job and some Ebay sales.]

As someone said, the first thing you need to do is get a job, ANY job and start getting some cash together.

[Agreed.]

I'm not sure someone so irresponsible as to run up a $7,000.00 credit card debt while in your circumstances, and supported by their mother at age 42 is responsible enough to live overseas.

[The debt and indeed the credit card were an aberration. In 2004, a few weeks after my mom told me to get on welfare, she finally decided to give me my share of my inheritance from my grandfather, who died back in 1997. She'd been sitting on the money all that time.

I had just landed a part-time job, but the pay was low and the commute was long. Buses run infrequently out where I live, and I kept missing the bus, no matter how early I'd get to my stop. I had to start taking cabs to work. Eventually the cabs cost more than I was making at the job.

I was miserable at the job anyway, and it offered no chance of advancement without a Master's--something I learned AFTER I was hired--so I quit, and lived off my inheritance for a year and a half. I got a credit card, the first I'd ever had. When the money was about to run out I took a trip to Paris, because I wasn't sure I'd evre be able to afford to do so. Then I wrote a book about the experience. I'm now looking for an agent to shop it around. I'd ben pretty good about paying off the card, but there at the end, I failed to pay up in time.]


My crystal ball tells me you have this in your future.
Broke and unemployed in a foreign country with an expired visa.
If you can't take care of yourself in your own country what makes you think you have the faculties to cope with life in a completely foreign environment.

[I can cope as long as I have an income. If no one wants to pay me in my own country, why not go to a country wherw they will?]


My advice to you would be forget about it.
Go out, get a job, and get your xit together. Learn how to be independant in a familiar environment, then start thinking about bigger things.
(and learn how to use the quote function.)

[Thanks for all the rays of sunshine and positive thinking, there.]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

I would say on the one hand it could be an attempt to take a step forward.

But on the other, it would be leaving a country where there is a nominal acceptance of phychological issues to go to one where there is a high likelyhood that there is none whatsoever. And it would be one where you don't know the language or the customs or have any network of people to go to for help.

And like the Rolling Stone wrote, this seems to be going in circles.

People who go in circles become like a gyroscope- they spin around in approximately the same place really quickly but ultimately never get very far and then then fall down, having expended their energy and gotten virtually nothing done.

The advice youa re getting from this board is that with your issues (financial and health) coming overseas is maybe not a good idea now and possibly it may not be a good idea period. They are then saying if you decide to come over anyway (keep in mind we don't actually know you so ultimately if you come it's your decision and maybe people here are all wrong, but on the other hand we know what it's like being overseas in our own circumstances and you know only having vacationed in France for a week) this is how you can go about doing it... and then you say you can't do that.

[jsbankston]

Something like that but the converation goes round in circles all the time. Surprised I want to get a job oversaas you say. Then I suggest Japan and you say "No way! I haven't got the money for that!" Get a job and earn some "No way! I'm not interested in that!"

[Actually, I think we're all agreed I need to get some advance money together. How much I need really depends on the country, right? I would love to work in Japan. The only thing I was concerned about was I'm not sure how to raise $5000-$6000 or so before-hand. If I knew how to pull that out of my hat, I'd have paid off my credit card debt.

But the point of going overseas is not to pay off that debt, though it is something I hope to accomplish while over there.]

Tell your mum you're going abroad whether she likes it or not "I can't. I am a codependent, manic depressive leper .... with ADD"

[I just mentioned that to explain how I got to this point in my life, not using those things as reasons not to go abroad.]

Just one roadblock after another, Shocked and I think you want to feel justified in not doing anything and not really giving anything a try.

[Well, there have been a lot of set-backs and shocks--all these things, as well as physical illness, an apartment fire, deaths of many loved ones. Maybe these things have stunned me into inaction. All the more reason to get off my ass and start afresh. But I think the appeal of going overseas is that it will seem a wholly fresh start--new locale, new circumstances. That, coupled with a regular income and a sense I'm actually making some progress will, I assure you, do wonders for me.]

Someone said that teaching abroad is not going to be good for you but I don't know about that. Just go and do it! Younever know if you never go Exclamation Idea

[jsbankston]

The advice youa re getting from this board is that with your issues (financial and health) coming overseas is maybe not a good idea now and possibly it may not be a good idea period. They are then saying if you decide to come over anyway (keep in mind we don't actually know you so ultimately if you come it's your decision and maybe people here are all wrong, but on the other hand we know what it's like being overseas in our own circumstances and you know only having vacationed in France for a week) this is how you can go about doing it... and then you say you can't do that.

I don't know why people keep saying that I've said I can't do this or that. All I said was I didn't want to take a job stocking after-hours at a store or share an apartment here, and that I doubted I could raise $5000-$6000 before leaving. I may have to take a crap job to raise a little pocket money. I'm just saying I hope to break the cycle of crap jobs, and would like to avoid having any more jobs like that ever again.

I'm really more interested in the logistics of picking a country, finding a job, and making myself ready for it. I probably should never have started this thread in the first place and exposed my under-belly. I made the mistake of starting the thread because I was looking for ways to bring my mom over to my way of thinking about TEFL, to get her as enthused as I am. I should never have allowed myself to get so personal on this board, and should've just kept my issues to myself.