Preparation

To China! It was completely off the cuff. The idea of teaching English abroad became palatable once I realized the extent of the American financial system's catastrophic meltdown. My main concerns of finding a job and starting a career were Clearly I would not be finding a job in the States with much ease and now, before I head down a serious career track, is a better time than any to take the opportunity to throw something on my resume like teaching English as a foreign language. It's a skill that's always in demand in any country. I have a chance now to build TEFL skills without any certifications or prior experience. On top of that, teaching in China presents the opportunity to vastly improve proficiency in the Chinese language, the most widely spoken language in the world.

One question lingered over all the others: Can you give everything up? Can you leave the comforts of the American way of life? Are you willing to step away from the haze of pleasant ignorance that pervades Western society? To this I can only answer yes.

Of course, there's always the other minor benefits of traveling to faraway lands, living in and experiencing first hand other cultures, and meeting a ton of new people I'd otherwise never be exposed to. In the words of Mr. D.H. Lawrence: "When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like squirrels from the cage of our personality into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we do not know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in."

As an introduction, this post really has no significance other than to give the blog a base. Perhaps worth mentioning concerning travel, however, is the Chinese government's visa process. As with most governments, the pace of processing is exorbitantly and painfully slow. I'll add to this paragraph once I go to DC in the next few days to visit the Chinese Embassy and actually get the documents.

For my own organizing...

My Initial Itinerary
From Los Angeles International to Beijing Capital International, by air...
Departure: Friday, February 27, 040 Pacific Standard Time [840 Greenwich Mean Time]
Arrival: Saturday, February 28, 530 China Standard Time [2130 Greenwich Mean Time]
Net Travel Time: 11 Hours

From Beijing Capital Internationl to Aston English in Jinan, by train...
Well this part is a little more spontaneous... apparently there're daily trains that leave from Beijing at 830 and 1730 CST... whether or not the website I found that information on is up-to-date determines how quickly I make it to Jinan. The plan is to go from the airport, to Beijing South train station by public transportation, and catch the train to Jinan.

We'll see how that goes, and the continuity of this blog depends on it. For now, I start incorporating Chinese into this baby...

再见!