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jsbankston
Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 214
Location: Texas
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 Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:46 am Post subject: |
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| Henry, how does being a total c********r about this help any? |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:57 am Post subject: |
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Help? You refuse to be helped -- which is obviously part of your game-plan here.
Face it: You'll never leave Austin and you'll never achieve all those aspirations -- unless, of course, you change your outlook on life and your ways of dealing with it. |
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jsbankston
Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 214
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:01 am Post subject: |
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I wouldn't have devoted so much of my time and all these pages if I didn't want to be helped. Clearly I just rub you the wrong way and you're looking for things to attack.
My game-plan is to find work outside the United States. |
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thrifty
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
Posts: 1665
Location: chip van
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:12 am Post subject: |
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| Henry_Cowell wrote: |
| jsbankston wrote: |
| Western Europe is still my ultimate goal, and I would like to wind up there eventually. |
If that's the case, why not get a job in Brussels with the EU or NATO? Both organizations need qualified expert writers and translators to create reports, whitepapers, proposals, and other documents.
Oh, I'm sorry. You are not qualified and don't have the credentials.
So you'd better fall in love with and marry a rich EU national pronto (with Mummy's permission, of course). With your low levels of energy, motivation ambition, money, skills, and credentials, you'll never get there otherwise. |
Plenty of crappy TEFL jobs in Turkey-PM me for details. |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:19 am Post subject: |
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Then find a job to get yourself to that point. If 20-year-olds can do it in a few months, so can you. You're not that special or unique -- despite all your "baggage."
People here have given you plenty of options. You need to get a job that will enable you to get to square 1. But you've found all sorts of excuses not to get that job. If you're not employable in Austin TX, why would you be employable overseas? And if you're too fussy to take jobs that are available to you, you'll never get overseas ... period.
This is a ridiculously silly cycle of nonpossibilities and excuses on your part. Get over it. In other words: It's time to grow up.
But why am I lecturing a troll who will find yet another reason to extend our misery?  |
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jsbankston
Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 214
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:24 am Post subject: |
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| Henry_Cowell wrote: |
People here have given you plenty of options. You need to get a job that will enable you to get to square 1. But you've found all sorts of excuses not to get that job.
If you had been paying attention at all you would've noticed I am indeed looking for these jobs that will get me to Square One, while also reading up on the background info for TEFL. But no, you'd rather ignore that and bitch at me.
If you're not employable in Austin TX, why would you be employable overseas?
Because there might not be much of a market for my skills in a town that is mostly about high-tech and state government.
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jsbankston
Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 214
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:26 am Post subject: |
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| Henry_Cowell wrote: |
But why am I lecturing a troll who will find yet another reason to extend our misery? |
And if I upset you so much why do you bother with this thread at all? Don't YOU have better things to do than insult strangers? |
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konyoku
Joined: 09 Sep 2005
Posts: 54
Location: neither here nor there
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:21 am Post subject: |
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I am of the mind that people don't change. This is especially true the older we get. Considering this, I would like to offer a few suggestions to assist you in working out what it is you're looking for.
You're quite good at caring for sick animals. You're devoted to Fred and, obviously, spend a lot of time looking after his renal failures. I would say, after his passing, that you find yourself another sick dog to look after; preferrably one with renal failure since this seems to be where your gifts lie. You could take Fred's corpse to the taxidermist and have him stuffed and hung on your wall or use him as a sort of teddy bear in the future. That way, you'd always be together.
You're also a professional job-seeker. Not too many people can boast of such an occupation. I would say continue in that line of work as it must give you a slight thrill at the prospect of having new prospects to consider everytime you fill out one of those apps.
Please don't take this as a joke. I'm being quite serious. You've conditioned your nervous system to the lifestyle you're presently leading and any sudden changes could very lead to system failure. We all find comfort in our routines. And I think your greatest happiness lies in continuing to do what you've been doing. Let's just say you took everyone's advice: hopped on a plane and started teaching. If you discovered it wasn't suited to you, why, we'd be to blame, wouldn't we? I certainly wouldn't want that and won't have it. So please, please, stay home and take care of Freddie for all our sakes. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:58 am Post subject: |
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| jsbankston wrote: |
| So what I'm basically getting is "You have a BA and no experience or extensive training in TEFL, but you don't need to bother with that. |
Yep. If your goal is to get a job, any job teaching English, you can do that with a BA and nothing else. There are a tonne of them in Korea. A TONNE!!!! If you have training you'd have better clue of what you were doing (or at least maybe understand some of the things that some schools do that don't seem to make sense, or else why some of the things schools require of emplyees are opposed to actually acquiring a language). But again, it's not strictly speaking necessary, and it could be expensive.
| jsbankston wrote: |
But expect a tricky interview where you'll be expected to intuitively know how to do this without any training.[ |
This is a possibility, but not always going to happen. You can learn an astonishing amount about doing this for free just by surfing the internet- but probably not so much on this site. The teachers section of this site is another story, though.
But also just do google searches especially google scholar searches on topics related to teaching English (you can get topics by going to amazon.com, and looking at the table of contents of books on teaching English).
| jsbankston wrote: |
Don't bother unless you want to make a lifetime commitment to the profession, but you've got to decide that now before you've ever tried it." |
Nobody is saying that. They are saying that if you are going to go into teaching English, you should be diong it to actually teach English, not to gather book material. You can totally still write, but it will/should be a hobby, and not your main job (although I have known one person who worked at an eikaiwa during the afternoon and eveneing, and wrote Sci-fi in the morning, and after two years went back to Canada and published his trilogy of sci-fi books. But still, while he was in Japan, his job was as an eikaiwa employee).
People are also seeing that you are a 42year old man with many issues to overcome, including never having really had a career- so basically, if you can get yourself some financial moving space during the next little while, during which you are caring for your dog, then you can hop on a plane and go to Korea a week or two later. If it's true that you can pay off your debt while workin in Thailand (which I seriously doubt, unless you are teaching privates so often that you are teaching from the time you wake up until the time you fall asleep) then that would definately be a happier experience. I personally would say go to Korea (or Japan, if you can affor the start-up, or Taiwan- those are the big three for North Americans to teach English in) for a year and save as much as you possibly can- it will likely be more in Korea, if you aren't just screwed over, because the cost of living is lower. Drop your debt-load to almost nothing, or else nothing at all. Then go to Thailand, get the smiley girlfriend (a real one, not someone that you pick up in a bar) and be really happy. There are a lot of people in their forties and beyond in Thailand because it is a happy, happy place (if you can stand the heat, but I could and I'm from Canada- you're from the south of the US so if you can't then that would be really strange).
That's it in a nutshell. Everything else you've gotten from this thread is people who are commenting on your issues (which have become greater and more problematic as this thread has gone along), or possibly just trying to get this thread to keep going (it might be a record for the Newbie board, and basically, it sure has been interesting) or 'taking the piss' or actually pissed off from what occasionally appeat to be a pretty callous attitude about teaching English. Also, you started out by saying you were 42 and worried about what your Mum thinks. EFL teachers may be an odd group to ask for advice for this kind of thing- we have all left our families, and many of us have done it against our families advice (for example, I personally have not seen a single member of my family in over three years. I only saw them once int he entire year before I left Canada- and it wasn't at Christmas, it was a day or two before I came to Japan. I miss them terribly, but I simply cannot afford to go back to Canada because of student debt, and they cannot afford to come see me, because I'm on the opposite side of the planet). |
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maya.the.bee
Joined: 23 Sep 2005
Posts: 118
Location: Stgo
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:17 am Post subject: |
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i have to admit, this is like our own soap opera. 15 pages when i went to work, 17 when i come home.
but i want to get my 2 cents in.....so
jsbankstons, my advice....
first,get a job at mcdonalds or subway. it's easy work and you probably get free (crappy, but free) food. and if you don't like the idea of those then just take the next job offered to you. i mean if you are honestly applying for so many jobs, then you must have received offers. and being $7000 in debt means you can't say no to micky d's.
second, go to the library. search for books on second language acquisition and pedagogy. and maybe some videos on different countries.
third, you're in texas. volunteer at your church or the y teaching/tutoring esl.
http://www.volunteersolutions.org/austin/org/213679.html
https://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/i_about.htm#ser
fourth, talk to your mother. consider her practice for your tefl interviews. if you can't get her to see why you want to go abroad, i think it will be difficult convincing employers.
last. turn off your computer and then hawk it. spending time on dave's or craigs list are doing you little good when you could be working, researching, or tutoring. or playing w/ fred. |
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Like a Rolling Stone
Joined: 27 Mar 2006
Posts: 872
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:34 pm Post subject: |
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| maya.the.bee wrote: |
| last. turn off your computer and then hawk it. |
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  |
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jsbankston
Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 214
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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| maya.the.bee wrote: |
and being $7000 in debt means you can't say no to micky d's.
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Well, Mickey D's wouldn't pay enough to anything towards my debt. but I'm still looking. A lot of managers are supposed to get back to me the beginnning of this week, and if they don't I'll contact them.
My computer I need for job-hunting and freelance work, if nothing else. |
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jsbankston
Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 214
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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jsbankston
Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 214
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:07 pm Post subject: |
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| GambateBingBangBOOM wrote: |
Yep. If your goal is to get a job, any job teaching English, you can do that with a BA and nothing else. There are a tonne of them in Korea. A TONNE!!!! If you have training you'd have better clue of what you were doing (or at least maybe understand some of the things that some schools do that don't seem to make sense, or else why some of the things schools require of emplyees are opposed to actually acquiring a language). But again, it's not strictly speaking necessary, and it could be expensive.
I would like to be providing the students with some value for their money, but maybe I can do that without first doing TEFL.
Nobody is saying that. They are saying that if you are going to go into teaching English, you should be diong it to actually teach English, not to gather book material. You can totally still write, but it will/should be a hobby, and not your main job (although I have known one person who worked at an eikaiwa during the afternoon and eveneing, and wrote Sci-fi in the morning, and after two years went back to Canada and published his trilogy of sci-fi books. But still, while he was in Japan, his job was as an eikaiwa employee).
Well, it's obviously still a hobby until it starts paying more than teaching, right?
People are also seeing that you are a 42year old man with many issues to overcome, including never having really had a career- so basically, if you can get yourself some financial moving space during the next little while, during which you are caring for your dog, then you can hop on a plane and go to Korea a week or two later. If it's true that you can pay off your debt while workin in Thailand (which I seriously doubt, unless you are teaching privates so often that you are teaching from the time you wake up until the time you fall asleep) then that would definately be a happier experience. I personally would say go to Korea (or Japan, if you can affor the start-up, or Taiwan- those are the big three for North Americans to teach English in) for a year and save as much as you possibly can- it will likely be more in Korea, if you aren't just screwed over, because the cost of living is lower. Drop your debt-load to almost nothing, or else nothing at all. Then go to Thailand, get the smiley girlfriend (a real one, not someone that you pick up in a bar) and be really happy. There are a lot of people in their forties and beyond in Thailand because it is a happy, happy place (if you can stand the heat, but I could and I'm from Canada- you're from the south of the US so if you can't then that would be really strange).
Makes sense. But I also want to investigate Eastern Europe before I decide on a country.
That's it in a nutshell. Everything else you've gotten from this thread is people who are commenting on your issues (which have become greater and more problematic as this thread has gone along), or possibly just trying to get this thread to keep going (it might be a record for the Newbie board, and basically, it sure has been interesting) or 'taking the piss' or actually pissed off from what occasionally appeat to be a pretty callous attitude about teaching English. Also, you started out by saying you were 42 and worried about what your Mum thinks. EFL teachers may be an odd group to ask for advice for this kind of thing- we have all left our families, and many of us have done it against our families advice (for example, I personally have not seen a single member of my family in over three years. I only saw them once int he entire year before I left Canada- and it wasn't at Christmas, it was a day or two before I came to Japan. I miss them terribly, but I simply cannot afford to go back to Canada because of student debt, and they cannot afford to come see me, because I'm on the opposite side of the planet). |
All practical, sound advice here, level-headed and free of insults. Many thanks. |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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Tell us, bankston: After 17 pages of responses, what exactly do you want from people NOW on this thread? What do you still need to know?If you want job advice, you've received plenty already. What more do you want?
If you just want compassion, please tell us.
If you want more fodder for your own writing, let us know what topics you're most interested in.
If you want to see how long a thread you can build by trolling, we can all stop it right now.
If you simply want attention, buy some guns and call your local TV station. How's that? Your call.  |
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