For those unaware, a brief history on how I discovered an interest in teaching abroad:

In the spring of 2003, Andrea and I went on the first of our trips to Central America. While we were there we happened to meet an Australian girl named Melanie (I might be wrong on that, but for this story it's going to be her name). She was traveling solo overall, though at the time she happened to be in the company of a guy from Portland named Victor who Andrea happened to meet shortly before we went on our trip (a different story I suppose, though not worth telling, as he was kind of a douche). She proved to be far superior company, and it was during our conversations with her that I found out that she was traveling on money she had earned after spending a year teaching in South Korea.

As soon as she mentioned having taught in Asia, the proverbial light bulb went off above my head. I knew at that moment I would at some point in my life do something similar. Melanie related some of her experiences teaching and her general impressions of Korean culture, and I was sold, I was going to teach in South Korea. While Melanie was the first person I met who had taught abroad, meeting her seemed to release the flood gate, and over the last eight years I have consistently run into people who have done similar teaching excursions. Each time it reaffirmed my interest in doing something similar, and it proved to be motivating enough to get me back into school to finish my bachelor’s degree (which was required in South Korea) so that I would be on my way to a jet set teaching lifestyle.

While I had originally intended on teaching abroad shortly after finishing college (2005), that is not how things ended up working out. However, considering that time involved a stint living in Austin, a second trip to Central America, going back to school to take a stab at a more traditional teaching career, Andrea becoming an amazing practitioner of TCM, and watching the circular nature of life as people left Portland, only to return, and some to leave again, I would have to say my previous intentions were ill-timed. In addition, South Korea proved to be incompatible with our life’s trajectory, and was replaced by Taiwan as the eventual destination. I usually feel dissuaded from touching on abstract notions of fate, but my own experiences have led me to believe that things usually work at as they are meant to, and so it seems that 2011 was destined to be the year that my (and Andrea’s) journey abroad was to begin…