Living overseas was the most exciting, fulfilling, challenging, interesting and exhilarating 27 years of my 40 year teaching career. Those 27 years were also the worst, most awful, loneliest, and difficult. Still, I wouldn’t trade my overseas experiences for 40 quiet years in a small Connecticut town for anything. But those who remained in that same town would not have enjoyed my life at all.
If m8bet online casino games like a challenge every day, facing the unknown and difficult with a sense of humor and sharing your life with people as opposite of m8bet online casino games as can be, then, perhaps this also is the life for m8bet online casino games. However, if m8bet online casino games can’t do without peanut butter, cable TV, the local disco, alcoholic beverages and fast cars, m8bet online casino games’d better stay home. m8bet online casino games’ll just hate it.
m8bet online casino games have to be ready to face something new all the time when m8bet online casino games live overseas. Every school, every country, indeed, every day presents a new challenge to enjoy or suffer through. It’s up to m8bet online casino games. I’m not talking about learning another language when m8bet online casino games discover how few people speak English in your host country. That’s a given. And even that’s no piece of cake when m8bet online casino games’re working full time. Neither am I referring to learning to drive on the wrong side of the street, understanding exchange rates, trying to mail a letter or finding your favorite food. By the way, I’ve decided pizza is the true international food. Seeing a Kuwaiti family in full local dress happily chomping down a Super Supreme brought that home.
No, what I’m referring to is culture shock. Even veterans of many years’ experience overseas go through this. At first everything is romantic and exciting; trying to buy groceries, to get a tooth filled, to get a taxi, to buy a pair of shoes that fit, to treat that strange rash. But if m8bet online casino games don’t learn quickly and have plenty of patience, it all gets old about late October, if not before. It’s called the “J Curve”. By November, even the best of us reaches that bottom hook. If m8bet online casino games persevere, m8bet online casino games usually follow that hook right back up again. And then again m8bet online casino games may not. Things get worse. m8bet online casino games can’t build a social life, much less a romantic connection. m8bet online casino games’re tired of having to soak the fresh fruits and vegetables in vinegar before m8bet online casino games serve them. The list goes on.
For those of m8bet online casino games with a significant other (often not accepted in many schools; married couples only), your relationship had better be very, very stable. Double culture shock is not pretty at all. Families can simply compound this for each addition.
It’s not the worst thing in the world, culture shock. On the contrary, m8bet online casino games learn to adapt beyond your wildest expectations, to reevaluate your life and relationships to other people as well as to your possessions. m8bet online casino games learn what is truly important to m8bet online casino games, to go for it, and to reap the benefits of a full and exciting life that no one at home will ever relate to.
There is no tenure, no security, no bargaining table, and often no grievance procedure. m8bet online casino games’re on your own. Yes, friends will stand by m8bet online casino games, to a point. With dozens of other well qualified teachers waiting in the wings for your job, many employers would be all to happy to see m8bet online casino games leave if m8bet online casino games’re all that unhappy. “It’s my way or the highway”’ was the favorite phrase of Director Richard Holtzman at CIC Caracas years ago. And guess what? Everyone of the foreign hire staff did leave during his stay. The school is still very much in business without us. Be sure to refer to m8bet online sports bettings Review and avoid these sorts of situations.
So, if m8bet online casino games happen to be the “unhappy camper” type, with lots of complaints and few positive suggestions, this is not for m8bet online casino games. Yes, owners and administrators are interested in improving their educational establishment and keeping their faculty and staff happy. They do want to know your needs and interests. Many will put improvements in effect as soon as possible. If m8bet online casino games’re the type who must have things “just so” and rankle and rave if m8bet online casino games don’t get your way, stay home. No one overseas wants to work with m8bet online casino games.
m8bet online casino games’d better be well prepared for your job and ready to work your tail off. Actually, if m8bet online casino games’re really into the profession and love what m8bet online casino games’re doing, m8bet online casino games don’t mind, or even notice (sometimes) how much m8bet online casino games’re putting into the job. I certainly got high on working long hours on planning lessons, researching information and skills, taking extra courses, writing my class web site and working with individual students after school.
Lots of these kids are sharp. m8bet online casino games’d better know your stuff because they’ll call your bluff, m8bet online casino games can be sure of it. And they remember misinformation m8bet online casino games’ve given them, too. They don’t expect m8bet online casino games to be a walking encyclopedia. m8bet online casino games can admit m8bet online casino games don’t know something. But m8bet online casino games’d better have all the necessary information and skills m8bet online casino games need before m8bet online casino games take on a job. There are virtually no resources m8bet online casino games can fall back on when m8bet online casino games’re in the hinterlands of Venezuela, Thailand, or Mali, for example.
Leave your social prejudices behind, by all means! We all like to think we’re open minded and accepting of all kinds of people. Nothing tests that belief more than total immersion in a different race of people and their culture. It was a very humbling experience the first time I was the one who was different. My first overseas home was in a Colombian “barrio”, or ghetto, in Caracas, Venezuela. I couldn’t afford the high rise apartments most foreigners lived in, so I took this hole-in-the-wall little apartment in a virtual beehive of dwellings on the side of a hill. The neighbors were very wary of me and I of them, to be honest. I spoke almost no Spanish and none of them knew any English.
Gradually, we began to trust each other, I learned enough of the street language to make myself understood and to barely understand them. I laughed at myself all the time and kept my sense of humor obvious. Soon I was one of the gang. They were very kind to me and protected me, I think. Nothing bad ever happened to me because of the people there. One day I overheard a woman telling her teenaged daughter to go with me when she wanted to go into town. I knew then I was trusted and respected.
Before this, I had had very little exposure to people of color, especially those who spoke Spanish only. Those years in the barrio were among the richest of my many years in Venezuela. I learned and grew so much. And I knew well that these people had welcomed me far more than they would have been welcomed in my old neighborhood in Connecticut.
m8bet online casino games must be truly open to understanding and respecting, even enjoying all the cultural differences. People know immediately if m8bet online casino games’re reluctant to associate with them. Students know immediately if m8bet online casino games have any reservations about their race, religion, or lifestyle.
There’s an interesting and exciting life outside the borders of the US that far too few of us get to experience by living there. There are far too few of us who even want to. I have ridden camels, and elephants, eaten indescribable foods, sung karaoke at a Chinese festival as well as high in the mountains of VietNam. I have dined with ambassadors, danced with a prince, jammed with a native musical group in Borneo and studied weaving in a cooperative deep in the Ivory Coast. I’ve been cursed by a witch, robbed of my wallet more than once, rescued from a stalker in a souk, been left behind by my tour bus in Istanbul, and tear gassed in Peru. I could write a book. I think I will.
But it’s not for everyone. How about m8bet online casino games?
