Before the Beginning

It's been a long and slow build to this point, but here I am. My bags are (sort of) packed, my closet is (sort of) empty, and I'm (sort of) ready to go.

A lot of adjectives were tossed around in describing the "career move" Corey and I are making. Perhaps the most prevalent of all descriptive words was Crazy. How could we just pick up and haul ass all the way to the other side of the world and immerse ourselves in a culture we know little about? Now, I can't speak for Corey, but for me it was the answer was always sort of "Meh. I'll let ya know when I get there." Basically just jump out of the plane now, and hope the parachute opens later. And after that, hope you land right.

I really hope that metaphor made at least some sense. If not, I'll just have to come back and edit the hell out of this thing.

But despite trying to flippantly dismiss this with a skydiving metaphor, it's become a lot harder to qualify the trip like that. Because this isn't just a close your eyes and jump type thing. It's been planned for a long time. A long, long time. And now, I'm wondering if it was long enough. I mean, I still have so much to do. I need to buzz my head for christ's sake. And umm... get my glasses fixed.

I promise there won't be many posts like this once I get to China, this is just me taking a break from packing before I realize I'm actually done and ready.

I didn't write "and ready to jump" there. I'm proud of myself. Look, I'm already growing as a person.

Although, "and ready to jump" does have a cool ring to it. Very epic. But since that ending is already squandered, I guess all I can say is that it's time to finish packing, and I'll catch you all on the flip side.

- Shawn

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Yees... its tru....tenemos nuestros billetes por la avion


We're headin' out February 25th.... and roughly 24 hours later, we'll be in Dalian

Itz a niiiice one

Besos, Corey

Contracts

Quick question. When was the last time you signed a contract with the Chinese Government?

That's what I thought.


So a bit of an update I guess. These aren't the contracts mentioned in the post from the beginning of last month. Those contracts were with the Aston/Future School in Dalian. These on the other hand, are with the Chinese Government as part of the Visa process. Seeing these contracts in Chinese just struck me as incredibly cool, so I figured I'd share.

That's reall all for now, but expect word on a confirmed departure date soon. I mean... real soon.

- S

Year of the Rats goes live

So since Corey and I received our contracts earlier this week, I guess this whole deal is official.

China. March 2007.

This journal is going to (hopefully) serve as the main point of contact for anyone who wants to know about all the craziness bound to occur come this March. It'll be updated with all sorts of well... words. And if you're lucky, pictures (Corey takes pretty good ones).

There won't be too many updates of note until we get there, but feel free to keep checking back before then, as there may always be nuggets of interest as we gear up to go.

So a few details: We will be teaching English as a Foreign Language in Dalian, China. The program starts on March 3, 2007, and lasts until February 28, 2008. I'd expect our actual leaving and return times to be somewhat different though.

So that's it for now I guess. Read up on Dalian. Do your homework. It'll help you when you come and visit us.

- Shawn