To all my friends who are reading this and thinking, “What the hell? I thought she didn’t want to teach again.” Let me explain.
I came to a crossroads recently with my career after being fired from my position on account of a scheduling mistake I owned up to. The mistake alone was enough to render me into a situation where I have been job searching for two months.
I still am on the fence about wanting to talk about what actually happened that day, but I haven’t decided.
When I took my last position here in Cripple Creek as marketing and event coordinator, it took me an entire year to find that job. I moved up to Cripple Creek to live and commit myself to live here. I planned to do a minimum of five years, to which I had completed one, but was fired way before I could become vested.
During these past few months of being unemployed, it feels like I have been on an incredibly long vacation that I’ve become comfortable with, almost too comfortable. At the same time, it is has been a maddening search for a job in my field in my area, and being that it took me a year to find this last job, I expected a long wait this next go around.
The Painful Job Search
I applied for over 100 jobs in a two month period. I got less than a dozen interviews, a handful of “we’ve filled the position” emails, but most of my applications have received absolutely no response at all. Regardless of it all, I felt like I was better at applying this time and I had more qualifications than my last job searching journey.
I started looking mostly for remote positions, thinking I was going to be stuck here in Cripple Creek in the apartment I had just signed a lease on the week before I was fired. I was determined to make my life work here despite it all.
Then, I started to branch out, applying to places in Denver, knowing I would have to break a lease or sublet and move elsewhere.
Expanding My Job Search Abroad
When my luck with jobs in Colorado failed, I started searching everywhere else in the US, applying mostly for writing jobs. Then, in my desperation, I started applying for jobs abroad.
Of course, when you’re applying abroad and you’ve lived abroad as a Peace Corps Volunteer, people all over China are trying to swoop up foreigners for jobs teaching English.
When I saw a website called laowaicareer.com, where they were advertising marketing and writing jobs, I set up an account and added my application. Within a day, I had 6 invites to apply for jobs teaching in China.
A huge difference to my search in the US where getting a job is like pulling teeth.
It took me a few weeks to even consider a position teaching in China again. But if anyone has ever met me, I never shut up about China. I loved it there. I even got a superlative award for “Most Likely to Leave China Kicking and Screaming”.
I told people I didn’t want to teach again because I felt like I was a bad teacher, but I also knew teaching was a surefire way to get me back to a place I loved so much. And I also wanted a situation different than my first time in China. I secretly wanted to try again in a lot of ways.
I started thinking, and many of my friends had told me this too, what if my first experience teaching wasn’t what it could have been? What if this next time could be different or better?
Believe it or not, I was in the perfect place to take a job in China since nothing else was really in my way anymore. So I applied for some of the jobs and got three interviews, two of them for teaching positions and one for a marketing job. I scored two of those jobs within just a few days.
Teaching in China… Again.
It was a tough decision because I wanted both jobs and they each had their appeals. I ultimately chose a job teaching in Xi’an, Shaanxi for EF English. The benefits and pay were things I couldn’t pass up. I also love Xi’an and enjoyed my visit there in 2016.
When I took that job, everything around me regarding it fell into place. My landlord let me out of my lease, empathizing with my situation (we were both crying on the phone by the end of the conversation). I found a lot of people were more supportive of me this time around as opposed to my first tour in China.
I am most excited to see my friends, my family, further my Chinese skills even more, and of course to eat my favorite foods again. I’m also looking forward to going to places I never had the chance to when I was living in China the first time.
What This Means for Travel Branyik
I know I had just started getting rolling on a Colorado focused travel resource for all of you, and I still really love that dream. So think of this trip as a sort of sabbatical from Colorado travel.
Travel Branyik isn’t going anywhere, it is just switching its focus from Colorado Blog to China Blog, sort of. I hope that those of you who follow me now will still follow me during my adventures abroad. I may still allude to Colorado from time to time since it is one of my favorite places on the planet.
Now just seemed like the perfect time to get back to China since nothing was holding me back.
If you would like to sign up for my blog and newsletter to stay with me on this journey, go here.
I’m So Excited!
I’m excited for this next adventure and for the opportunity to capture it better than I did last time. There will be more videos, more pictures, and more words for everyone to enjoy.
Thank you all for following and enjoy the next bit of my journey! If you want to see about some of my past China adventures, read my blog on traveling to Pengshui County or what Chongqing style foods to eat when visiting!
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