17 Days

I'm going to Beijing in 17 days for at least a year.  I have 17 days left with my family, and friends... 17 days left with Chipotle, 17 days left with American TV, my car, my phone... 17 days left with my life as I know it.

I'm excited.  And nervous.  I always wanted to study abroad while I was in college but it didn't happen due to the fact that I was less than studious early on.  By the time  I was serious about my classes, studying abroad just wasn't possible.  It was time to get down to business and graduate.  I have been out of school for about 6 months now and started an MBA in Finance this Spring.  Very quickly into the semester I realized that I didn't have another year and a half of school in me.  I needed a break.  My options were very limited, I could either get a real job making a low salary (thanks BBA in Marketing!) or I could try to make my dream of living abroad happen.  I decided to do the latter.

There are many options for Americans to get jobs in Asia and South America.  The easiest job to get is teaching English, especially in China.  Here are the qualifications:

1.  Be a natural born citizen of the USA, Canada, England, Ireland or Australia (few exceptions made for other countries, and its possible I forgot one or two)
2.  Be a native English Speaker
3.  Have a Bachelors Degree from an accredited university.

That's basically it.  In China you don't have to pay an exorbitant placement fee of up to $2000.00 like you do in South America.  The companies recruit you themselves, hire you, process your visa and work permit and get you over there.  China also pays more than South America.  Both places have a relatively low cost of living when compared to the United States, but the salary I was offered in China was much higher than I could make in South America.  So China it was.

One of my best friends is in Beijing teaching English right now, so my goal was to get a job there.  If that was impossible, I would have accepted a job in another major city, but I had no interest in living in rural China.  I think moving to Beijing will be enough of a culture shock.  Every company I talked to said that they couldn't get me a job in Beijing, but could offer a position in Shanghai, Guangzhou, or smaller towns in central China.  I was disappointing but undeterred.  I was about to accept a position in Guangzhou when one of the first schools I spoke with contacted me to say that they had an open position in Beijing.  I accepted.  My visa paperwork is in the mail as we speak, I am moving out of my apartment today and back in with my parents, and I have put school on hold until I return.

So in 17 days I start a new life.  A different life.  I don't really know what that life will look like yet.  I have read just about everything on the internet about life in Beijing (not really, but a lot) but I don't think words are enough to prepare someone for a change of this magnitude.  I am excited,  I am nervous,  I am hopeful and I am sad.  It will be hard to leave everyone behind for an entire year and move to a new place.  No one can really know what the next year holds for me, certainly not myself, but I hope that seventeen days from now is the beginning of something great.