Yes, yes, after a little bit of gratuitous verbal ejaculate, I will answer the question on many of your minds. How in hell's name did we end up in Cambodia? I know, some of you are saying, "You said you were heading to China," while others are even now saying, "China? Who said anything about China?" So, for those not in the know, let me give you the skinny and then I promise that my next post will have something more exciting about our first few days in Southeast Asia.
We were headed to China to teach for an academic year (August to July) at a university with which our home institution (FGCU) has ties. We had hosted a visiting scholar from that Chinese university this past academic year, and I had served as somewhat of a point person for her, introducing her to people and having her sit in on my classes. Well, in the course of our conversations, the idea of Julie and me teaching English in China came up and was enthusiastically pursued by all parties.
On our end, Julie and I wrapped up most of our household belongings and shoved them into storage before handing our keys over to some nice young college girls (no comments on that please). We also made arrangements with FGCU to take an unpaid leave of absence (so, Yes, we have jobs when we return). We bought extraordinarily expensive tickets to China (to be partially reimbursed later), and began taking physical examinations and submitting our bodies to all sorts of other prodding and poking in order to prove our relative healthiness. We then began sending paperwork to all sorts of various organizations in order to prove that we were who we said we were and had the credentials we claimed to have and all sorts of things like that. Though it may sound easy up until now given that this whole process has thus far only taken up a few sentences, it was neither easy nor straightforward.
Once packed and de-homed, we set off for LA--via a two-week, truck-pulled popup camper, camping adventure that is a whole other story--in hopes of arriving in plenty of time to take our remaining documents to the Chinese Consulate in that city and have our visa applications processed only to find out that we were supposed to have gone to Houston because we lived in Florida or to have sent the applications to a third party organization that handled such matters. We found all of this out approximately one week prior to our departure at the same time that we found out expedited handling of the visas would cost over $1500 bucks.
If that would have been the end of it, we very well might have shelled out the cash, but there were still other glitches that may or may not have smoothed once we arrived in China--glitches that may yet have precluded us from staying and teaching there. So, in the words of an old buddy of mine, C-Spot, we "Poof," popped the shoot (which should be accompanied by the motion of your hands pulling imaginary parachute cords).
With no jobs or home to return to and certainly not enough money to hang in the States for a year, we did what any sane person might (or at least what should little surprise those of you who know us), we changed our flights from China to Cambodia for a modest sum, and decided to wing it from there. We had been meaning to spend a spot of time in Southeast Asia.
Now, the only question that remains for those of you who do actually know our penchant for bailing early is, When will we "Poof" and come back to the States?
Let the betting begin!
We were headed to China to teach for an academic year (August to July) at a university with which our home institution (FGCU) has ties. We had hosted a visiting scholar from that Chinese university this past academic year, and I had served as somewhat of a point person for her, introducing her to people and having her sit in on my classes. Well, in the course of our conversations, the idea of Julie and me teaching English in China came up and was enthusiastically pursued by all parties.
On our end, Julie and I wrapped up most of our household belongings and shoved them into storage before handing our keys over to some nice young college girls (no comments on that please). We also made arrangements with FGCU to take an unpaid leave of absence (so, Yes, we have jobs when we return). We bought extraordinarily expensive tickets to China (to be partially reimbursed later), and began taking physical examinations and submitting our bodies to all sorts of other prodding and poking in order to prove our relative healthiness. We then began sending paperwork to all sorts of various organizations in order to prove that we were who we said we were and had the credentials we claimed to have and all sorts of things like that. Though it may sound easy up until now given that this whole process has thus far only taken up a few sentences, it was neither easy nor straightforward.
Once packed and de-homed, we set off for LA--via a two-week, truck-pulled popup camper, camping adventure that is a whole other story--in hopes of arriving in plenty of time to take our remaining documents to the Chinese Consulate in that city and have our visa applications processed only to find out that we were supposed to have gone to Houston because we lived in Florida or to have sent the applications to a third party organization that handled such matters. We found all of this out approximately one week prior to our departure at the same time that we found out expedited handling of the visas would cost over $1500 bucks.
If that would have been the end of it, we very well might have shelled out the cash, but there were still other glitches that may or may not have smoothed once we arrived in China--glitches that may yet have precluded us from staying and teaching there. So, in the words of an old buddy of mine, C-Spot, we "Poof," popped the shoot (which should be accompanied by the motion of your hands pulling imaginary parachute cords).
With no jobs or home to return to and certainly not enough money to hang in the States for a year, we did what any sane person might (or at least what should little surprise those of you who know us), we changed our flights from China to Cambodia for a modest sum, and decided to wing it from there. We had been meaning to spend a spot of time in Southeast Asia.
Now, the only question that remains for those of you who do actually know our penchant for bailing early is, When will we "Poof" and come back to the States?
Let the betting begin!
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