It’s time to get this blog up and running! Ben and I are at a pivotal moment of our pre-china journey. In just 11 more days we will be hopping on a plane to Shanghai!! Before I get too deep into celebration mode let me break down what it took to get here:
Firstly, let’s rewind to last winter. I had a minimum wage seasonal job at a seed company in Oregon and was feeling that my life just needed change. Ben and I were living with family and didn’t have a place of our own. He was finishing up school and trying to figure out how to get a job with a Chinese degree. We had hit rock bottom. Our relationship got rocky as we were both stressed with the status of our lives. I was feeling so stifled and ready for a change and I think Ben felt the same. That was when we made the gutsy decision to shell out the money, get CELTA certified and begin teaching abroad. I used almost all of my savings of a year and a half’s work at minimum wage to pay for my admission to the CELTA program at St. Giles in San Francisco. The day after Ben’s graduation ceremony we drove all the way to California with no real plan for our futures beyond getting our CELTAs. It was scary.
I had never had any formal training in teaching much less teaching English. I was nervous about my ability to teach English as a first-generation immigrant. Grammar has never been easy for me to grasp. Ben was lucky enough to have a decent background in the specifics of language since he studied linguistics in college but none of my training was useful in this regard. Despite my fears, we were both interviewed for the class over the phone and managed to pass!
The CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program is a highly intensive month-long course that is taught in 70 countries all over the world. (See more about it here). There were about 10 or so people enrolled in our CELTA class. We had class 5 days a week (monday through friday with weekends off) and met from 9 am to 5-ish pm. In the mornings we would learn the CELTA methodology and in the afternoons we would practice and observe each other teaching actual international students. There were all sorts of people taking the CELTA class with us. We had two classmates who didn’t even live in the United States and who were staying in California just for the CELTA. Another one of our classmates was a freshly-returned Peace Corps volunteer. We had several classmates who had already received their masters (one of them in TESOL) and another classmate who had just graduated from her undergrad program right before starting the CELTA. Needless to say, it was an interesting bunch.
Getting our CELTAs was really a monumental achievement and also sort of a game changer. In the last week of our CELTA program we had a recruiter from Education First (EF) come to speak with us and that was how we eventually got our jobs at EF as English teachers. Our recruiter has been professional, punctual, and extremely helpful with this whole process. We had a single interview in San Francisco in one of the EF centers and were asked to prepare a few materials for the interview to highlight our teaching styles. Janice was very helpful in helping me choose the ideal city to teach in. I came to the consensus that Shanghai was my number one choice because EF’s Chinese headquarters are in Shanghai and Beijing but I wanted to avoid northern China because of the climate and increased pollution so that ruled out Beijing. Shanghai is also the perfect beginner city for a new expat since there are so many foreigners there and they have the most extensive public transportation system in the world. Ben and I interviewed separately and only asked to be placed in the same city after we had both passed the interview solo. Our recruiter tells us that we might be placed in nearby schools but not the same school.
After getting our acceptance for the job of teaching kids and teens in China we began the long process of paperwork. In order to get our work permits we had to get copies of our college diplomas and our background checks notarized locally, by the Oregon Secretary of State’s office, and finally by the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco. We also needed to get passport photos, copies of our passports and agree to get a full physical in China. All this paperwork has meant that we have been up and down the I-5 corridor numerous times this summer trying to balance packing, meeting friends and family to say goodbye, and fulling our bureaucratic responsibilities while also trying to fit in some summer vacation fun on the side. We have been in living in Cottage Grove and Salem in Oregon, in north Lake Tahoe, and Fremont in California and commuting to San Francisco frequently. We have even been on Maui, Hawaii for two weeks!
There is nothing better for strengthening a relationship than travel. I am so lucky to have Ben as my partner because he has been with me every step of the way during the ups and downs of this summer. We’ve stayed up late and gotten up early to finish lesson plans and he’s held me when I’ve cried and stressed out. We’ve managed to feed each other when the other person is too tired to cook. He’s let me sleep on his shoulder during the long BART rides to San Francisco and has helped me through the SUPER complicated ins and outs of paperwork for the Chinese Consulate. We’ve smiled and cooed at so many adorable babies while waiting at said Chinese consulate. We’ve explored countless hole in the walls in search of the best cheap food in the Bay area and Hawaii. And he’s even letting me pack some of MY clothes in his new suitcase! This one’s a keeper, friends.
So the good news is that after a summer of driving back and forth we finally will have our visas next week and as of this evening have purchased our plane tickets! Ben and I are flying cheaply through Air China where each of our one way tickets was less than 300 USD. I’m interested to see for myself if Air China holds up to the numerous horror stories online. If anyone of our readers has had experience with this airline please feel free to leave us a comment or shoot us a message. 11 more days until our big Shanghai journey begins!
This is Methi signing off!
2 Laowai Zai Shanghai 