jojo. in transit.

It feels like the last few months before graduation ALL OVER AGAIN. (minus all the senior research pressure, fun, slacking off, adventure seeking, senior meetings, reckless abandon, crying, and hugs) 

The part that’s unmistakably familiar is the WHERE AM I GOING TO BE NEXT YEAR? part. and the WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE PART? I have a slight addiction to programs. Jobs and things that have a finite timeline. IE teaching somewhere for 9 months, Americorps, Citiyear, etc. But that’s beside the point.

The Fulbright has given me SO much perspective on things and what I actually want to do/pursue—what’s possible. And hopefully, it’s going to be a highlight on my resume showing a number of things—namely, flexibility/adaptability and further international experience—helping potential employers realize that THEY SHOULD HIRE ME. haha. I think the Fulbright will make a lot of difference down the road and especially (or hopefully) when applying to grad school, but for my current trajectory IE gettin’ a job ASAP. It hasn’t proved to be my ticket to success yet. Ok, maybe I need to actually apply to some jobs for that to be true hahaha. BUT, as far as looking for work returning to China or Taiwan it hasn’t made a whole lot of difference, but I suppose I’m in a better position that I was a year ago. I have way more experience teaching English abroad and in some fairly extreme conditions (large class sizes & few resources). So that’s GREAT! But it seems like most of the choice positions (smaller classes, in cities, good salary/benefits) want people who either majored in English, have a CELTA, are WHITE, or have a 1+ of continuous ESL experience. I have none of these. So, while I have gained experience, it doesn’t quite put me at the top of the application pool. If only I was a bit more “American looking” and had just a bit more time teaching/a CELTA!!! I mean I have a TESOL. Which does count for something. 

In fact, if I was to apply for the EPIK program again in Korea, I do think I would be in a higher earning salary bracket. YAHOO. And I’m seriously tempted. Anyone in the ESL community knows that Korea is THE place for teaching English. I mean there should be a statistic of the number of foreigners living in South Korea and how many of them teach English. It’s probably something really high. And with good reason. The pay is great, from what I understand the students by and large are wonderful to work with, and c’mon Korean food is DA BOMB. Bibimbap anyone? KOREAN BBQ?? I DIE. yum. Not to mention korean people are just beautiful. Whats up with that? There seems to be a running joke that white males who move to Asia to teach English are just unattractive losers who can’t find girlfriends in the states. But that’s not true. It’a LITTLE true. If you’re white male in Asia, I’m not talking about you! (I could be talking about you.) Haha, no but honestly, all joking aside. I’ve seen a great share of both. Really cool charismatic guys who wouldn’t have a problem finding a date on any continent and sadly, I’ve seen the other type too. Kinda creepy..always preying on small Asian women—guys who are only “cool” because of the novelty of their breed. 

SO, as I wrap up my time in India, I look towards the future hopefully—but I also will be anxious until I figure out what I’m doing next. I have a few broad and general goals for the next year. I want to be: in a City—I’ve decided I can’t do rural (domestically or abroad). I’m a city girl through and through. (moderately sized towns are OK too.) IF I do go abroad for longer than 6 months then it HAS to be in a Mandarin speaking country. I have not studied mandarin on and off for NINE YEARS to just stopping altogether or filling my brain with more languages that are not Mandarin. hahahahaha (Nine years. IS THAT EVEN REAL? GOD, MY CHINESE SUCKS for that to be true. But it is. I started in 2003. Fine, heavy stress on the “on and off” part. And furthermore, sometimes I just leave out the fact that I studied Mandarin in high school for four years and took AP Chinese because I don’t think my Mandarin speaks to that fact…) In fact even the course work in college was just weak. I didn’t actually start sounding like a normal person until I lived in China.) Anyway, back to what I was saying. If I’m gonna throw myself into another culture for an extended period of time, I want to become more of an expert in one thing, instead of knowing a bit of a bunch of different languages—even though that has its own value too. Besides, I just love Chinese. I really do. I hope to be a life-long learner. And oh yeah, I want to have a job that I enjoy. People are gonna say it can’t be done. As I like to say, HATAHS gon’ HATE. But I’ve seen it done. It happens. It can happen to you. It can happen to me! I am a true proponent for “doing what you love”. You can’t be effective in your workplace if you don’t enjoy the work. That’s just obvious. I interned at a marketing firm in Beijing for a semester and well, let’s just say I’m staying FAR AWAY from marketing. I was miserable. My feelings were basically this: SO, let’s get this straight. My job is to convince people to buy crap that they neither NEED nor WANT? In fact, I’m going to trick people into going to this website? cool. NOT COOL. (I was doing SEO work which stands for search engine optimization. My job was to increase traffic to the website that hired us in order to create “real traffic” and therefore push the site higher on a google or yahoo search. So if you searched, Cubic zirconia jewelry, our job at the firm was to get this sight up to the top of the list of websites.) Part of my job was to go to places like digg.com and Yahoo answers to promote the website. Essentially I was paid to LIE to people. Again, not cool. Like if a yahoo question asked, “What should I get my girlfriend for her birthday?” I’d answer like “Hey a great gift would obviously be jewelry! Women love jewelry. I get all my jewelry from THIS WEBSITE. You should check it out!” LIES LIES LIES. I spent my time on a computer telling lies and writing hideous articles like, “Bibs Aren’t for Babies Anymore”. For more of my FABULOUS articles about jewelry, SEE HERE. I published so many articles that I became a “platinum” member and even received a complimentary mug and pen at my home address in the States. I kept a blog where I regurgitated similar ideas and there were rules about what words I had to link in which article and how many pictures and words. It was so mindless, but still took time. I passed the time by streaming old This American Life episodes. I teared up in my cubicle a few times. IN SHORT, do what you love. And by golly, if you can, do something that helps people. I still can’t find any value in the work I was doing there, but working there taught me that A) I REALLY don’t like cubicles (re-confirmed after working downtown for a summer at an online company tagging articles in Java) and B) I want my work to have a positive and greater impact. 

If you’re still reading, cool. Feel free to stop at any time. 

Why I should move to China instead of Taiwan:
1. China is well, China. It’s critically important politically and otherwise right now. It’s a hub of energy with a network of established expats.  

2. There’s A LOT to see. It offers more by means of travel options. True, I’m already well traveled within China having seen possibly 20 or so cities. But I missed a lot too. I could go on travelling China for who knows how long. 

3. Familiarity. I did it once, I could do it again. Living in Beijing again would make things a lot easier. Butttt, I’m lookin’ at Chengdu or even Shanghai pretty seriously. 

4. Simplified characters. It’s what I know more. (But who am I kidding, like I can even read anymore. And by “read” I mean recognize pictures. You will understand the full meaning of this only if you have studied Chinese and even more so if you have both studied Mandarin AND another language in a different script (say Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, or Korean, etc.) Learning a new script as I’ve found with Hindi is so cool and REALLY fun. And really satisfying. Learning to read Mandarin, however, not so fun. Since you know each word is PURE MEMORIZATION through and through. Oh boy, don’t get me started! Ahh, Chinese.

5.  I’ve got some pengyous (friends) in various parts of China. 

6. It would be easier to get a job in a city in China as opposed to a city in Taiwan. 

Why I should move to Taiwan instead of China

1. I LOVE TAIWANESE FOOD. If you’re saying to yourself, it’s the same as Chinese food, ok, yes. Basically, YES. BUT I don’t know why, everything was tastier in taiwan to me. AND OH, THE STREETFOOD. Taiwan takes street food to a new level of delicious. And the BUBBLE TEA. 
***To be fair, a reason why I should not move to Taiwan is because I could legitimately become quite obese

2. Relatively cleaner air. (I’m not sure how true that is, it just seemed true to me from living in both places.)

3. Less health concerns from “tainted” products. IE problems in CHina: lead in paint, bad milk, fake beef, recalls on all sorts of products, etc. 

4. The weather/The warmth. Minus the BRUTALLY hot and humid summer/year round high temps. Sunshine and warmth sounds pretty enticing. Especially since I’m currently writing this quite chilly in my non heated Delhi apartment.

5. Taiwanese people are AMAZING. I never met a Taiwanese person I didn’t like. So cool, laid back, friendly, and always intensely proud to be Taiwanese. Not that I don’t like other people, but their friendliness really stands out in my mind enough to be a point. China was, and can be, lonely sometimes. Though, any place can be.

REASONS TO NOT LEAVE THE STATES

Having Friends. Good solid friends. When you live abroad and or move around a lot, you make a lot of good temporary friends who then become far away friends who then, most of the time, become acquaintances. Having good friends requires time and many experiences over that time which lead to deeper bonds. If I’m always moving around/not in the country, how can I expect to keep the friends I have or make any for the future. And if you’re thinking distance shouldn’t ruin a good friendship, then you don’t know me and how allergic I am to keeping in touch. If you ain’t around, then you probably ain’t gonna be hearing from me. BUT, I’m making strong conscious efforts to keep in touch with those who mean the most to me.

But seriously, my greatest fear in a nutshell: After years of “seeing the world” Joanna returns to the states friendless, old, and unmarried.  

Like, maybe I should be setting roots someplace? Having a job for a number of years in THE SAME PLACE. Doing the whole 20-something-post-grad-struggling in the city thing. Meeting someone? I ain’t getting any younger over here! Ok, I’m 22, so I’m mostly kidding. Like I’m young, I know I know. BUT I won’t be forever. And maybe I shouldn’t be spending years at a time away. But who says you can’t meet someone abroad, right? exhibit A, my own ma and pa. So, maybe that’s all crazy talk. But watching shows like ‘Friends’ makes it seem like maybe I would like to be apart of a close-knit group of friends in a city in the US. 

Meh. That’s all I got for now.
Happy Republic Day, ya’all! Today I: Watched a parade in Delhi! Searched for a flag, got blisters on the bottom of my foot, finally went to the Jama Masjid in old Delhi (it’s beautiful!!) and spent the whole day with a good friend from college. Now, one more day of work before the weekend!!