What The Future Holds

The beginning of 2005 was when I began to think long and hard about leaving Korea. One of the motivating factors was that our daughters would soon be reaching school age, and it has long been our hope that they would go to school in an English-speaking country. However, another motivating factor was that I was burnt out from teaching English. I felt dead inside, like I would rather be doing anything other than teaching.

Then, in the summer of 2005, my family went to Canada for a month. It was fantastic not having to be in a classroom. I spent time at the beach. I barbequed. I went to a baseball game. I met old friends. I went with my dad and his friend for a little boat ride on the bay near my hometown, where we spontaneously jumped into the crystal clear waters for a swim. After the month was up, we returned to Korea. I was back in the classroom teaching English. Well, I was there physically. Emotionally, however, I never returned. In fact, for the first month back at JLS, I was like a zombie. I just didn't care about my job anymore.

So, I began thinking about the future. One option that Heather and I liked was the idea of parlaying my recently-acquired master's degree into further graduate studies in Australia, a country we both wanted to visit. I looked at schools in Sydney that offered doctorates in educational technology because this is what I wanted to study. Later, I shifted my focus to Perth, which had a university that offered a similarly excellent program in interactive multimedia, with the added bonus that my children could attend school for free while I did graduate work. I was so convinced that our future lay in Australia that I began documenting our planned move with a blog, Moving Down Under.

But along the way, my feelings about teaching became so negative that I felt I wanted to go in an entirely new direction. I was no longer interested in possibly remaining in education, even to teach at universities, even in non-ESL fields. No, I had reached the point where I needed a career change.

In the fall of 2006, I applied to Vancouver Film School for a program in Writing for Film, TV, and Interactive Media. I was accepted, and I will be going to Vancouver in April, 2007. This, I absolutely hope, will lead me in the new direction I wish to take. It will be challenging work, but already I am seeing how my experiences in Korea as an English teacher may play a prominent role in my future as a potential screen or script writer. After all, there have been some amazing stories along the way. And this little blog of mine has been an attempt to preserve the memories so that one day I may write the great screen play or script.

Time will tell.