Traveling the World

Archive for March, 2010

I’m sure you are all surprised by how I am writing another blog post so soon after my last one. Well it’s for several reasons: I’ve got a lot of things going on, but they’re good things and I’m much happier now! So without making you sweat, let’s get to the update:

Last time I wrote I still hadn’t found a girlfriend; I began dating an amazing girl named Jessy about 2 weeks ago. She’s a few months older than me (which isn’t important because age is just a number), and unlike most Chinese people, actually has some life experience. She lived in Kunming (Yunnan province) for 2 years and worked as a journalist for a Hong Kong based newspaper. They sent her on trips to India, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand to cover various news, which already makes her rare because most Chinese people have never left the country before. She is going to start studying for a Masters degree in International Relations in September, so she knows a lot about the world, its history, and how countries deal with each other. On top of all these great things, she can speak Spanish, dance Salsa, and has a great sense of fashion. She’s also very mature, caring, and funny.

On the work front, things are great too! For the first six months of work, I was constantly arguing with my co-worker Susan. We just couldn’t get along, and it didn’t help that she and some of the other Chinese teachers thought I was a lazy sack of shit. Well, when I came back from Australia I was determined to show them I was a good teacher, so I began writing my lesson plans in advance and asking for input and taking control of my classroom. One day, Susan had to miss work so I taught with my boss, and she thought I did a great job. As a result, I know my job is safe, and the only thing keeping me from signing a new contract with the school is me failing the “test,” where I have to teach a lesson on my own in front of my co-workers and bosses (with the children as my students, of course). I know this won’t be a problem because I had to do this as my job interview when I was looking to get hired by them.

On the other side of work, I’ve been working my ass off doing part time work varying between proofreading, editing, voice work, acting, freelance writing, and teaching English. As a result of doing these different types of jobs, I doubled my salary this month. My normal salary is 5000 RMB + 1200 RMB for an apartment allowance, but this month I earned 9900 RMB + 1200 RMB. I have a new part time job that has me working about 15-18 hours a week, which means if I don’t mind working 7 days a week and suffering 6 hours straight with no break, I can earn about 12000 RMB every month, which is AMAZING money. (12,000 RMB = $1751)

Next up is my business: I have finally gone to the market and negotiated with the store owners all thanks to my co-worker Summary who was gracious enough to come with me. I’ve bought some items I hope will sell. I’ve started a Basic eBay Store ($15.95/month) and am in the process of listing my items and hiring someone to create a custom template which will make my eBay Store look pleasing to the eye. I am also going to buy a new domain and have a matching template be created for that so people can check out all my items and buy from me without having to pay eBay fees! I am also talking to Jessy’s friend about getting ethnic minority art to sell. On top of all of this, I’m looking into selling products to BBYO (my old youth group) and Soriorities.

The last thing worthy of noting is my new Excel spreadsheet: I’ve discovered a website called NetWorthIQ which has got me into keeping up with my assets. As a result, my spreadsheet has 3 tabs: one for my total net worth (updated monthly, including a column for “last month” so I can see how last month compared to the current month, and in fact a graph can be constructed from the data to neatly show if my net worth increases or decreases on a monthly basis), one is for my expenditures for month (how much money do I spend, what day am I spending it on, and why am I spending it), and the last is for my income earned (this is important for me because I receive income from different jobs, so it is good for me to see if the jobs I’m doing are worth continuing or not).

On the Chinese language front, I’ve been working so hard doing all these other things that I haven’t been online that often, which means I have no real opportunity to practice Chinese with other people. I also don’t have time to teach myself, so my Chinese has taken a back seat. Once I finish this awesome Jeffrey Archer novel called “The Fourth Estate,” then I’ll focus my attention back to my new Chinese books.

I called this April Fools Day, but it’s being released before April Fools, so this is not a joke.. it’d be really hard for me to make ALL this up (and I’d be pissed if it wasn’t real because of how much work I’ve really put into all of this.. haha)

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve changed my attitude around to get back on track. In doing so, I’ve been working harder than ever to really change my situation. I’ve been voice acting, regular acting, freelance writing, teaching English, and any other work I can get my hands on. The biggest goal which still eludes me (besides finding a new girlfriend) is starting my export business.

Sometimes I still find it hard living here, so a long-term business would be considered a bad idea since my own ideas are a bit unstable, however on the other side of the coin it could be argued that a successful business would make someone stable. I used to know what I wanted, yet as the days pass and I grow older, I become ever so more unsure of what I truly want. As great as I imagine it could be to leave China and start fresh somewhere new, I have an unsettling feeling in my gut because I have no clue what I could do to have a good life wherever I went to.

It feels terrible not knowing what to do with the rest of your life, and it feels worse having no direction in which to go to pursue such an unknown path. As I have no real marketable skills outside of writing, teaching, and Psychology, the only thing I can see myself doing is business, yet there as well I have no experience or education (is being Jewish a prerequisite for success?)

It’s with this that I’ve resigned myself to living with the attitude of taking it a day at a time. For now I have no money saved, no real opportunities with which to advance myself in life, and as such have decided to stay in China for another year to check my options and save money for the future. Maybe this time next year I’ll be someone different to who I am now, and my ideas will be different. Hell, maybe I’ll be engaged to a Chinese girl (yet at the current time I’m quite against the idea)!

The hardest part (and I’ve said this time and again) of being here is what I’m missing out on back there. In less than 2 years, it seems like so many things have happened in the lives of all my friends and family, and yet I seem like a fly on a wall 9,000 miles away. They’ve seen happiness in the form of marriages and the birth of children, and sadness in the form of breakups, injuries and too many deaths.

But since this post is meant to be about change, I wish to end it on a note of happiness: the things we do in life shape who we are, and even though some people wish they could take back the things they said, or have a chance to re-do the things they’ve done, we have to realize that those things are what make the people we become, and we can only be happy for the chance to experience them.

I know it’s been said in the past, but I have to say it again since it’s relevant.

When Lily and I first broke up in December, I felt really sad but knew I had to move on. I went to Australia and tried my best to have a great experience despite a lot of down time. After coming back, I began my six week holiday from work. The first few days were nice and relaxing, but I hadn’t had a date yet. I told myself it was no matter, I’ll meet someone. Then comes February and the English winter camp.

The camp was one of the worst experiences I ever had in my life, so I’ll only say that there was absolutely no organization or coordination, in conjunction with a terribly planned schedule and no follow through. In the end, I only got paid 5 days late because I made a huge scene and bitched some people out (they wanted to pay me a month after the camp was over).

After that, things only went downhill. Day in and day out for 4 weeks, I sat at home and watched TV and played video games. After only a few days my mind went numb and I tried to create a workout routine and morning routine to waste the first few hours of the day, so by 4 weeks (and the routine already destroyed), I was like a zombie just trying to survive.

For about a week or two I was really depressed on a scale I’d never experienced before. It scared me for a few days, until I convinced myself I was wasting my time and needed to get my life back on track. Thankfully school was starting back up soon and I was managing to find a few dates.

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School started a week ago and things are much better. I’m making some important business contacts and working on my export ideas, which will actually begin being put into action this Monday! I’ll first begin small by buying a few items and putting them on eBay to see how they fare. From there (if I’m right), I can earn some money that will soon serve as capital for purchasing a larger shipment from a factory which I hope will be sold to some lovely person in the USA.

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It took me 3 weeks to write this article from start to finish because of how depressed I was, and I felt that by writing about it it would only make me confront my thoughts and feelings, and thus maybe make it worse. As a result, I powered through the first half, and left it until now, when I’m feeling much happier and can report good news!

The hardest thing for me about China right now besides the cold is the homesickness. As you all know, I haven’t been home since I moved here, so I’ll be going home for a 2 month visit this summer. Sometimes all I can think about is going home, but I’m stuck here for another 4 months. That can make you feel so hopeless sometimes, knowing that all you want to do is leave but can’t. It’s almost like prison.