Damn this second wind!

Interestingly, "Sleepyhead" by Passion Pit came on on Pandora.

It is 20 to midnight, I need to hit the shower & get to bed, but after being tired all day for my long day, I had a good time hanging out with Tausha and got my second wind.

So, I THINK the last time we left off I was debating/decided on applying for this job in Chicago for the place that certified me in TEFL. You may remember (provided I wrote about it, lol) that my ONE BIG reservation was that I'd be talking people into going to... wherever, & talk myself right back into wanting to get the hell out of dodge. To wit: I wasn't sure I was ready to throw in the towel on this whole traveling/teaching/life of upheaval that necessarily includes adventure and travel just yet.

I worried too about applying/discussing the position with them when I had this big reservation about taking the job, especially with them wanting you to start or at least interview in person in April. I thought down the road when I'm ready I wouldn't want to have tipped my hand/gotten tangled up in an interview process that I was a bit conflicted about. Even though I DO know that the US is the end of the line.

Then I was talking to my dear friend & expat-leader-of-sorts Keri about just every damned thing, and I told her I didn't think I was done. Funny thing: all I've wanted is for someone to tell me what to do, or at least that's what I've been thinking to myself. Naturally though, I really wanted to make up my own damned mind. Keri doesn't think I'm done either, which she admitted after I'd said it. So-- diving deeper into uncertainty, insanity, stress, but anti-boredom!

Meanwhile my job still sucks, and once/week I have a moment where I am committed to just up & leaving on April 15. Recent events have likewise caused me to consider whether or not my boss is bipolar or a split personality. I won't go into the nutso details of the last few weeks, but suffice it to say that I see no Jen-replacement on the horizon. I believe it wouldn't be 'til June, and I know for a certainty and without reservation or doubt that I will not stay in that school that long.

I will have to leave before they find my replacement. I know that; the expats who've been here for 7 years & longer likewise all agree that this job is worthy of a midnight run (where you leave the apartment & job for a midnight flight out of Korea, no notice at all). Leaving before they've found someone means no letter of release, and no letter of release means I cannot work in Korea until next February when my ARC expires.

I decided that SOMEHOW, SOME WAY I will stay through April because it'll be another month's salary. I will stay on another 11 days or so after THAT since we are paid on the 10th of each month for the previous month. I will make sure the money's deposited, transfer it all to my US account, and get the fuck out. Solely out of necessity, because I'd much rather stay here for a while.

Now the only question is: WHERE? That is what I'm debating now.

It's funny: before I left Chicago to do this, I knew that my one real bucket list item was to live abroad at least once. I knew also that I wanted nothing more than to travel indefinitely like so many of the travel bloggers I obsessively read before/during my preparations to leave. I envisioned living somewhere to build up cash reserves, then travel until money got low, over & over. Interestingly, it's looking like I'll almost certainly end up country-hopping for work because I can't abide the long-term suffering that people 20 years younger are obviously equipped to do. On the one hand, I envisioned country-hopping. On the other hand, I envisioned between-bouts of settling in for a bit. I could definitely have stayed in Korea, were it not for the untenable work situation. Of course, everything's further complicated by the thyroid follow-up in June (though honestly, I could just revisit for that, money allowing, lol). & the fact that Asia is easiest and cheapest, but is also the most aggravating, and largely undeveloped of places I could teach.

This is where the money is, but you know, I view it at this point as hardship pay and I wouldn't do any of those jobs either. I will barely have made any dent on my debt before I have to shove off to a country that pays less. BUT. I can revisit Thailand like I wanted. I can EVEN get that ridiculous/inexplicable niggling in my mind about Vietnam out too. Thailand has shorter-term contracts, and for the ones that don't, when I've had enough, off I'll go again. Funny: I've never EVER been that person. But I'm fully prepared to be her now.

So I spend 1/2 my time excited about getting to try out so many places, and the other 1/2 of my time panicking about where I should go, why, etc.

I'd ask you guys to vote, but that got us exactly nowhere last time, lol. So I guess we'll see where the dark, shady, twisting road leads in the next week or 2.