Jerbs

Two people have offered me jobs since I got here, which is like two more jobs than I've been offered in my life basically.

Well, not really, but it does feel kind of different when people personally reach out to me to see if I'd be interested in something like that.

The first one was extremely unexpected. A couple of the girls upstairs, Jenny and Kara, were having a pot luck dinner and invited a bunch of teachers to come and join. James and his wife were there, Danni and Courtney were there, and a few other people. A former teacher at JCIE also came named Keith, who looked and spoke fluent Chinese, but was actually Korean. We all talked a bit about colleges somehow, and it came up that I'd gone to a bunch of them.

Sometime shortly before he left, Keith asked if I'd like to talk to some of his kids about the different places I went, what I liked and didn't like, and what I thought about transferring and all the applications and et cetera. I said sure, why not, and we arranged for me to go about two weeks later. After I talked to the kids for a while (just gave a presentation to about six of them because many were away), he asked if I might like to work with his company part time to help kids with all the miserable parts of the US admission process. I told him sure, though I also told him I'd likely leave China in May. So we'll see how that goes.

The second one was a bit more predictable to me. I was just sitting on the rooftop playing guitar and James, who is Chinese and married to our teacher Angela, and asked me to keep playing and singing. I sang the first verse/chorus of Seaweed Sheets, then did the chill vamp at the end of it, and figured that was enough. The song is too long to do the whole thing, so I just called it quits there. He asked me afterwards if I liked to play in bars by any chance, and if I would be interested in playing at some local ones nearby that he knows needs some players. I was pretty sure someone would ask me this eventually in China, but what I was surprised about was that he only saw me play guitar, which I am complete shit at to be very honest. I told him that I could possibly do it, but I would only play guitar for a maximum of 40 minutes, but I could do longer if I had a keyboard. I really don't feel very comfortable on guitars at all. He said he'd talk to his friends and see what they needed.

So I guess we'll see how that goes. They could both be pretty interesting, because I think both will probably help me meet more Chinese people than I do here. I mean, sure I meet the kids, but this place is kind of like a jail for them and I don't ever really see them at all after class, which makes me very sad and also makes it hard to motivate myself to learn Chinese. But maybe these will help.

Peace out.