First, I should clearly state that my first choice is to have the funding go through and I will attend SUNY Buffalo for further study. However, at this time I am not prepared to finance my education on my own. It does not make sense as I am going into an Education field and the chances of having this degree pay off is not so high. It may help with getting the job I would like, but unfortunately, the salary expectation is not high. According to a e-mail I got today, Buffalo is still waiting to hear about the funds for graduate students, so it is not possible to go further with that solution.
Second, We have decided that we do not want to live in different places. Thus, we either all go or all stay. If we stay, we are going to need to pay for Hudson's school which is the same price as my tuition, so that does not really make sense. I am tired of paying through the roof for mediocre education.
So right now the most serious consideration is to move back to Michigan. I have applied for a job to teach ESL at Lansing Community College which is essentially what I was doing before I came to China. I suppose it looks like LCC is still hiring despite the financial crisis. We think it makes the most sense to go to the place where we are familiar.
Although I have been looking at a website that had jobs for International Education, and I will apply to some of those as well. So I suppose if one of those jobs came through, I would also consider it.
We were joking that if I move back to Michigan to get my old job, we should seek out all of our old things. First, Meng will contact his former co-worker Shankar to get our Saturn back. I will contact Robin's friend who bought our Buick and get it back too. In addition, we will go buy back our old condo and live in the same place. Finally, Meng will get back his old job. Then everything will be as it was, but different. We will write a book about getting our stuff back and we will become filthy rich and famous for our efforts. See grams, it is a good thing we did not have a yard sale or we would be tracking down all the stuff we sold as well.
Although the job here is really attractive, and it is a promotion over what I have been doing. I know if I take it and funding does not come through again for Buffalo, we will be in the same place next year facing the same problems and issues. It is never going to be easy to leave China and the longer we wait the more reasons we can find to stay and the harder it will be to leave. I still remember reading the Ben's Blog that you will never be ready to leave China, but that you will need to decide it is time to go. I think we have made that decision and we need to stick to it.
Another conversation I had was with a co-worker. We were discussing the academic benefits of living in China. Where else can an English teacher afford to live in a 1200 sq foot apartment in the downtown and have a housekeeper to clean it. In addition, we have a housekeeper who does our shopping and cooks dinner for us 5 nights a week. I have never learned how to operate my chinese washing machine or dryer. I do not even need to remember to buy toilet paper. Ayi notices it is missing and she restocks it for us. In addition to living the life of luxury, I am also able to take vacations to Thailand or other parts of China. My list of places to go is long, and I am sure if I were to stay in China longer I would be able to check many of those places off. Economically, we do well here. But is that a big enough reason to stay in a country. After all, we do give up a lot of have the economic standing. Is it worth it? For how long? In fact, one of the main reasons foreigners stay in China is the economic situation.
The conversation that stole the cake was with a student. We were discussing what families do together. I mentioned some of the things we do together as a family, and I got a lot of odd looks from my students. Apparently we do a lot together. One girl mentioned how she hardly ever saw her father because he was always working to give her and her brother a better life. She said with a look of sadness on her face that made me realize I never wanted Hudson to feel that way.
So if you happen to see any of our old crap, help us get it back. We will be sure to write about it in our book and you can be famous along with us!
The latest we will probably be back is mid-August, but we are still ironing out the details.
PS I checked on houses in our old neck of the woods, and it is listed for 41,000.... I am so glad we sold it when we did!
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