Getting ready to go

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Well, as of right now (8:11am PST) I have 18 days, 1 hour, and 48 minutes before I board my plane to (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, then to Atlanta, Georgia, USA, then to) Santiago, Metropolitana, Chile. I have a lot to accomplish before I go. I am definitely nervous. I have dreams practically every night, some good, some bad. I actually had a dream about 2 weeks ago that I was on the plane on the way to Santiago and we collided head-on with another plane! The scary thing is that just happened not too long ago above the Amazon in Brazil (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5397902.stm). But I am definitely much more excited for the experience than I am nervous or scared.

I am currently sitting in the mall of the Amo DeBernardis College Center at Portland Community College (PCC). I am an Academic Advisor here (for another 9 days!). I love PCC! I received my Associate of Arts degree here in 2005 and loved my experience here. PCC has great instructors. In fact, most of mine had earned PhDs in their fields. Additionally, small class sizes really allow the students to have access to their instructors. Right now I am waiting to start work. We are doing drop-in appointments because it is registration time and many students need help planning their courses for Spring term. I like my job because I get to meet so many people doing so many amazing things. I've met students that are going to be Sign-Language Interpreters, others who have just returned from AmeriCorps positions in which they travelled the country for a year, and many who are pursuing careers in Health-related fields, just to name a few. The only hard part is I find myself wanting to join many of them on their journeys!

I received my Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)/Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) training yesterday in my email. TEFL/TESOL are the same thing for the most part though TEFL is more often used with teaching English in a country where another language is spoken and TESOL is more often used in countries where English is spoken and taught to people who speak another language. After the 100-hour course I will be certified to teach English all over the world. It's very exciting and I'm beginning to think it might be a potential life-long career. Can you imagine seeing different countries all the time and having a job while you are there?!

Well, best that I do not get too ahead of myself. I plan to keep this updated regularly with pictures, journals, maybe videos, links, and whatever I can find to help anyone reading share this experience with me.

Thanks for reading!

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Comments

[Ryan]

Good luck
That sounds like an interesting job. I love to travel myself. Just came back from South America last month, already plotting my next excursion. Is your major english, or something else?

[Zach Wegner]

Major
I actually majored in Sociology and minored in Political Science and Women's and Gender Studies. They basically just look for native speakers with Bachelor's degrees.