Fuddland

The next chapter in the saga of my employment in China. Having handed in my notice, I began trying to plan my next few months, specifically with regard to location, accommodation, vocation and communication.

Communication

Finally getting fed up with not being free to commit myself to a dedicated course of Chinese lessons — due to the possibility that new teaching work could be scheduled at short notice and at any time of the day, morning, afternoon or evening — I decided that once I’d handed in my notice there was less chance of my being assigned new teaching duties, so I signed up for eight weeks’ worth of Chinese classes, three times a week. I’m in the middle of the second week and I’ve already learnt more vocabulary than I’d managed to pick up since arriving in Sūzhōu (苏州), as well as putting to good use the basic stuff I’d been taught in Běnxī.

Vocation

After handing in my notice, it became more and more obvious that, in terms of finding a new employee, my timing [last day at current job: December 9] was a little off: school and university semesters will only have a couple of months of their first semester left, then break for Spring Festival/Chinese New Year, so are more likely to be wanting new employees to start at the beginning of March. This was rather too long for me to go without work, so I approached my current boss with the offer to finish up the several courses that I am in the middle of teaching, instead of stopping halfway through and her having to find a suitable replacement. [Recruitment is still a seriously difficult problem for her.]

Of course she didn’t immediately agree to this idea, despite it saving her a lot of bother, and the couple of times I asked her for a decision, she tried to convince me to stay on until my original contract-end date of mid-June, which I flatly refused. Finally, last Saturday we sat down and she agreed to pay me part-time [that is, hourly instead of the full salary] to do a few hours a week for the remaining lessons. This gives me a little extra pocket money to tide me over, as well as plenty of free time to crack on with the Chinese study.

Accommodation

The downside to the aforementioned deal is that I lose the flat that comes with a full-time job, so I’m currently being very nice to a couple of friends in the hope that I can crash at their places whilst I finish up my teaching commitments and Chinese course — everything concludes in the first week or so of January.

Location

So, what then? I’d like to take a few weeks in January and early February to get out of Sūzhōu and see the rest of the country; now that winter is drawing in and things are a bit drizzly around here, I thought a trip down to the south of China might be in order — although the idea of a snow-covered Great Wall then catching up with some friends who have taken residence in Xī’ān (西安) [northern China] is also appealing.

Whatever I do, I’d like to return to Sūzhōu after a few weeks, having found one or two good reasons [mostly one really quite lovely reason] to stick around a while longer. There is the issue of my visa to figure out: it expires mid-February, and depending on who I talk to, it’s either a doddle to extend it or I’m illegal the moment I leave my job and must return to the UK first if I want a new one — I’d like to avoid the latter case if at all possible, as it invalidates my travel insurance policy, which is otherwise good until next August.

It’s still all a bit too up-in-the-air for my liking, but things seem to be iterating towards resolution instead of in a worse direction, so I remain optimistic.

#1

felicity | 2006 / 11 / 22 – 07:05

fingers crossed for the visa, i hope you can work it through to stay as things seem to be going well for you (outside of work!).

#2

Jann | 2006 / 11 / 23 – 22:39

Does the really quite lovely reason have a name?

[Edited by commenter — 22:40]

#3

Jann | 2006 / 11 / 23 – 22:41

Comment deleted because I’m getting hassled by the computery thing

[Edited by commenter — 22:43]

#4

Jann | 2006 / 11 / 23 – 22:44

Oh dear. I appea to have broken the internet

#5

David | 2006 / 11 / 24 – 22:25

Re #1: Thanks Fizz. :)

Re #2–#4: Everything okay there Jann? [I can neither confirm nor deny the Proper Noun status of the lovely reason.]

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