teach English to elementary school kids in Georgia<\/a>. \u00a0I had the interview over Skype just yesterday, and I think it went pretty well! \u00a0I should hear back in the next couple of days, so fingers crossed on that.<\/p>\nIf they decide to hire me, I’ll leave in three weeks and stay until at least mid-June. \u00a0At that point, I’ll either sign up for another semester or go somewhere else, either the Middle East or Eastern Europe. The pay isn’t great, but it seems like a good cultural experience, and I’m a lot more interested in the Caucasus than I am in East Asia (no offense to Asians).<\/p>\n
Ever since I graduated in 2010, I’ve been looking for a fulfilling career that I can balance with my writing aspirations. \u00a0I learned pretty quick that that simply doesn’t exist in Washington DC; either you sacrifice everything for your career, including your family, or you end up trapped in an office pushing papers all day. \u00a0In Utah, I bounced around a lot of temporary jobs while struggling to make ends meet, but I never found anything more permanent that seemed to strike a balance.<\/p>\n
I hope that teaching English will help me to find that balance, and from what I’ve heard from some of my former expat friends, I’m optimistic that it will. \u00a0Perhaps more importantly, it will probably enrich my writing by exposing me to new peoples and cultures. \u00a0Desert Stars<\/strong>\u00a0was certainly enriched by the time I spent in Jordan; without having lived in that culture, I don’t think I would have been able to write it. \u00a0Besides, English is something I’m good at, and so is teaching–so why not capitalize on the skills I already have? \u00a0It certainly sounds better than wasting my 20s in a warehouse.<\/p>\nSo that’s the plan: launch a TEFL career and spend at least the next three to five years abroad. \u00a0At least. \u00a0I might not get married until my 30s–or who knows, I might find someone out there and go native–but this is something I want to do as a career, not just as temporary filler before I figure out what I want to do with my life. \u00a0I’m through with filler. \u00a0Whether it takes one year or ten for my writing career to take off, I’m going to get out and do something useful and worthwhile.<\/p>\n
That’s the plan, anyway. \u00a0And of course, I’ll always keep writing.<\/p>\n
Right now, I’m finishing up Stars of Blood and Glory<\/strong>; I’m on chapter 15, with only three more and an epilogue after that, so I should finish that well before I leave. \u00a0After that, the next big project is Star Wanderers<\/strong>, which is already about halfway finished. \u00a0I’ll probably take some time off and work on polishing part II, then release parts I and II sometime in the spring–unless by some weird fluke it wins Writers of the Future. \u00a0I’ll know in February.<\/p>\nAnd after that? \u00a0Well, I’m thinking it’s almost time to pick up Edenfall<\/strong>\u00a0again, but I can’t say for sure. Probably, though–I definitely want to finish that one before the end of the year, and preferably get it published. \u00a0After Stars of Blood and Glory<\/strong>, I’ll probably take a break from the McCoy continuity in the Gaia Nova universe, though I may pick up something from Jeremiah’s timeline in Star Wanderers<\/strong>. \u00a0I really want to do a parallel novel from Noemi’s point of view–maybe that’s the one I’ll do in seven days, just to hit that resolution. \u00a0Everything has to be ready fist, though, and right now it isn’t.<\/p>\nSo much is changing–I have no idea where I’ll be in the next six months, creatively or physically. But right now, I’m just enjoying a relaxing time with my parents and getting ready for the next big transition. \u00a0Life is good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I thought it would be a good idea to do a quick post explaining what I’ve been up to the past month or so, since a lot of things have changed and I’m sure they will be changing a lot more in the future. \u00a0So, here’s what’s up: As you may or may not know,… Continue reading What I’ve been up to recently<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68,44,509,857,569],"tags":[89,698,364,133,1007,46,90,30,697,495,599,357,312],"class_list":["post-6956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bsh","category-ds","category-edenfall","category-sw","category-sbg","tag-career-decisions","tag-cultural-experiences","tag-culture","tag-family","tag-gaia-nova","tag-goals-and-plans","tag-graduation","tag-life-decisions","tag-teach-and-learn-in-georgia","tag-teaching-english-abroad","tag-thoughts-reflections","tag-washington-dc","tag-work","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1Oc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6956"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6959,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6956\/revisions\/6959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}