Change of heart...

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Well I am feeling a lot happier now since I last updated this. I'm starting to make some friends I think, I spent an evening out with Aussie Jo last night, we stayed out until 4am sampling a lot of the local bars. He's a really cool guy and seems to have a very good, laid back teaching job with less hours than me and getting paid about the same amount as me. Through him I have been introduced to the English club, which is where all the Laowai in Zhangjiagang go and where all the chinese students who are studying English go and try to make friends with you to help improve their English. Although their main priority is learning English, they are still very friendly and nice people so I am happy to help them and be friends with them.



Soon we will have more teachers arriving which should make things nicer, it should also mean I'll have a flat mate and so won't be lonely anymore.



Also I've discovered that I can do Kung Fu here, but have yet to find out where. I don't think I will be able to afford for a little while, maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months, I have some debts to pay off first.



And I am liking my life. I don't think I would want to live here all year, nor do I think I want to stay in this job for more than 6 or 8 months. I love the school I am in, but come summer time I don't think I want to be here working about 50 hours a week over 6 days a week in the sweltering heat. Which means I will still return home early. But I had a thought last night. I did a summer school in England last summer, and there is no reason why I cannot do that again. Infact the summer schools seem to offer free accomodation and incredibly good pay for a very easy job with little hours. I could return to England in time for summer, get a job at a summer school in Brighton and get them to provide me with free accomodation if I agree to work full time. If I ask far in enough in advance I will pretty much be guaranteed a job for summer and in the location of my choice, especially if I email the company I worked for last summer. That way I can stay in Zhangjiagang until June, which gives me the chance to save a little bit more money and also reduces the amount I have to pay for my airfare.



I find it very confusing thinking about the future while I am out here. Sometimes I like my life here, sometimes I want to be back home where everything is familiar. I can actually live a much better life out here than I could in England, I can save lots of money and live a very luxurious and stress free lifestyle if I chose to. The job I have right now is a good job and I work for a school that is incredibly supportive and the staff are all really great and I get on with them. But if there is one thing I could ask for them to change then it would be the amount of hours we work because I have noticed other jobs in the city with very similar pay for a lot less hours. For the time being though, I am very happy at this school. But I am thinking that maybe one day, when I am ready to teach English abroad again, I could look for a job that is really, really easy (and judging by what I have come across I really would have no problem getting one). If I got one with minimal hours, I could use all my spare time to do other things that I really want to and also teach privately and make money from that. I worked out if I could somehow earn 10,000 kwai a month; get 5,000 kwai from my main job and then somehow if I were lucky enough get another 5,000 kwai from teaching privately, then I could save 5,000 kwai each month and splash out the other 5,000 on living expenses and general messing around. I could live in one place through Autumn, then return to England for a month at Christmas on holiday, then go back to my place abroad and teach until summer, then return to England and teach another summer school. Of course, getting that sort of deal may turn out to be quite difficult but it would be perfect! It would give me a perfect balance of living abroad, living a nice lifestlye, saving lots of money and being able to return home for enough time each year in order to see all the people that I love and miss.



I've been thinking a lot about living in England and it just seems so bad compared to living in China. I can work in a pretty boring rubbish job in England, earn enough to scrape by, enjoy the very expensive costs of living and miserable angry people that I encounter everyday in England and enjoy the wonderful weather! If I had the will power, I suppose I could work really hard to get a good job, but I know it would take time and a lot of sacrifices and involve a lot of hard work, perhaps I could get lucky and just end up in a nice job in England, but I am not going to hold my breath on that. In China, I can live like a rich person, I can live a nice lifestyle and
I can easily get a job earning lots of money...I can't emphasise the word "easily" enough there, I mean it really is easy for me to get a job teaching English here, infact in most places in the world. I'm very, very lucky to be a native English speaker. In some cases all you need for a job teaching English is to just be a native English speaker, Aussie Jo doesn't have a degree and he's earning more money than me!!



Well these are just thoughts at the moment...I tend to have a lot of thoughts and constantly change my mind about things, I am very indecisive! But to sum up, right now I am happy and I think I would feel settled for a while if I could somehow find a way to get an easy job here, have the opportunity to save lots of money and be able to travel back to England for a few months each year. That would suit me very nicely and I think I could actually sort out a deal if I tried hard enough. It would probably mean staying in the same place when I am teaching abroad as opposed to going off to different countries each time. If I stayed in the same place it would give me the opporunity to settle down and once I had settled down that would reduce my costs slightly, it would also mean I would get to know people which could help me with finding good money making opportunities.



Well, I'm gonna be off now, I'm lucky enough to have an easy day today where work does not start until 6:15pm and finishes at 7:30pm!!! Today pretty much counts as another day off, hence the night out until 4am last night, and I don't have an early start until saturday which means 4 late nights out partying in a row! Woo! See ya lata!

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