I think the excitement is growing more in me now. I’m starting to remember how much I loved Paris, and how excited I am for Venice and Amsterdam. Now what I’m worrying about is finding a job for the summer. I’ve been interviewing at a few places and sending in my resume, but so far it’s no good. My internship is awkward because it takes up four hours of my day, which means I basically have to find a night job. I also need to find an employer who wont mind me being gone for almost two weeks. I’m getting scared. I’m also really sad because I’m going to be missing my parents 50th wedding anniversary. There’s going to be a big party, and I’m not even going to be there. I’m also missing Independence Day, which is my favorite holiday. But I guess I need to stop focusing on what I will be missing, and focus on what I will be experiencing. Apparently a lot of the hotels on the trip have wifi, which will be nice for blogging while we’re gone.

Another thing I’m a bit worried about; I know from past experience that when you travel with someone, you find out just how much you like them. I lost a friend from just a four day trip to London. I don’t want to end up hating my travel companion. She’s amazing and I love her, but who knows what will happen from our 12 days together. She’s already told be that she enjoys being a tourist and wants to stay with the group the whole time, but I am super independent and because I’ve already seen a lot of the stuff on the tour, I’m going to want to go off on my own and see other things I missed before. I just hopes she either is okay with coming with me, or fine with being by herself in the group. I’m not wasting my time over there by redoing things, when I could be off exploring new adventures. Obviously there are things I do want to do again, like go to the sights in London, and take more photos of certain things in Paris, but while I’m in these two locations, I will be taking advantage of being over there for a second time, which allows for more experiementation with my two favorite cities in the world.

Now just to win a trip to New York, and I’ll be set for life. :)

TESOL and Au Pair plus other Travel Jobs

Here I am, yet again, changing my mind about what I’m going to do with my life. I was trying as hard as possible to stay away from teaching and handling children, but it seems like that’s the only way to live abroad. I am fully considering switching my views and going out into the working world right after I graduate from Western. After a lot of research, and my British friend advising me, I’ve discovered that it will be almost impossible to find a company in London who is willing to hire me, especially right out of university, even if I go to grad school there.

I am now looking at getting my TESOL certification. My friend got hers online during her senior year of college and is now in South Korea teaching English. I feel like this would be a really good opportunity for me. I’m not the biggest fan of being a teacher, but I think I could do it well. It would give me the chance to spend a year or so in different countries teaching under contract. A year in each place would be so wonderful. I could do it for a year or two at first and then continue on if I find that I love it. The training is about $400 and takes 120 hours, but if I started it now or in the fall, I could certainly get it done and get ready to go work right after graduation. My friend graduated in June and got hired in July.

Another route to go is being an Au Pair. Everyone I’ve told this to so far has looked at me funny and reminded me that I strongly dislike children. While this is true, at the moment, I feel like if I started now, working with kids, I could get over my dislike and become more comfortable around them. About half of my dislike for them is just a show usually, and the other half is just because they scare/annoy me. I found out recently that I can handle kids if they are about 8 or older. Younger ones aren’t my favorite. But being able to live in another country for a time would be worth it, even if I have to take care of a child. It’s a much easier way to attain a visa than trying to find a job that will sponsor you.

I’m trying to look at other jobs too. I’m going to have to start applying in less than a year, so I’m looking at cruises and tour guides, and anything else I can find. I’m just hoping someone in London will call me out of the blue and ask me if I want to come work for them, and then life will be perfect. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work like that, so to make up for this, I am going to travel while I’m young and have no attachments. I’m not going to completely give up on grad school though. I will still apply to a few and see if I get scholarships, which would be the only way I could actually go.

On another note, British Airways finally came through and I got my flight set for real this time. The trip will be a day shorter now than it was before, but I guess that means spending less money on a hostel. Christmas in London! :)

Why am I Apathetic?

I shelled out $1,248 for my flight for the supposedly “free” trip I won, which made me super shaky as I was paying for it… And just to think that it could’ve been about $500 cheaper if I had bought it a month ago when we won… Oh well. Maybe it’s because of the money aspect that my feelings for this trip are really unenthusiastic, but right now I’m not really excited for it. I keep thinking of all the places I’m getting to go, but for some reason I have no feelings of joy. I’m going to Venice for heavens sake! I’m going back to Paris! I get to see Munich and Amsterdam!

I think it might just be because I’m still bummed about my London trip. Oh yeah, by the way, since I haven’t updated about that lately, I called British Airways to set up my flight for that contest, and in the spirit of winning contests that turn out to not be like you thought they would be, they told me that basically the trip was meant to be for the holidays, so I couldn’t do my June trip as planned. After calling them many more times to sort it out, I finally ended up having to book a trip for December, right before Christmas. Thinking I was done with that was wrong to do because the flight expired because BA didn’t confirm it in time. So I’ve been trying for about 3 weeks now to call them back and rebook the flight. To my disturbance they have not been answering their phone lines and not responding to my voicemails. I’m really upset at this point, which is probably why I’m not excited about the other trip. I need to book that flight so I can make sure it’s set in stone.

So all in all, lesson for you children, winning contests is not all it’s cracked up to be. There’s hidden fees, restrictions, people who wont return your phone calls, and stress that shouldn’t be there. I’m not saying don’t enter contests. I’m still entering contests daily. Just be careful to read the fine print (which I thought I did), and be flexible because not everything is as it seems.