First of all, I’d like to apologize for neglecting the blog lately. This is an article that would have been more timely a few weeks ago, but between doing all the required tasks for my new job, testing season for my current students, flat hunting, getting the first dose of my vaccine (yah!), and so on, I just haven’t had the time.
It’s sometimes been so busy to the point that I haven’t sat down to think about what a symbolic year 2021 is. It marks ten years since I completed my undergraduate degree at Springfield. It also marks five years since I earned my master’s degree from St. Rose. Had it not been for the top-notch education I received at both of those schools, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be in Prague today.
Pondering these anniversaries led me to a pair of intriguing questions. At first glance, they may seem simple, but after looking under the hood, they are anything but that. If you work in HR, you ask and hear answers to these queries all the time, but I don’t think I’d be a very good HR person, so I have to answer them on my own.
These are not questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. They’re also not hopeless questions (that we already know the unfortunate answers to) such as, “Will the Buffalo Sabres ever win the Stanley Cup?” or “Will Mike ever find true love?” Oh no. We’re digging deeper than that.
And no, these questions have nothing to do with mental health, either, although there’s never a bad time to ask someone the question, “are you OK?”
So let’s stop dragging this out and get to the first question…
(Drumroll please) Question 1: Where will you be in 5 years?
Let’s start by deciding how we would have answered this question five years ago. Some things were a lot different then. I still lived in New York. My beloved grandmother was still with us. Barack Obama was president. But some things–such as the losers in the blue and gold jerseys reaching levels of suckitude few franchises have seen before–are still exactly the same.
What would my answer have been? I probably would have said that I’d be working as an English teacher at one of the many quality high schools in the Capital Region. I would be single (speaking of things that will never change) and living in my own apartment, with family close by if I need them. I wouldn’t be breaking the bank financially, but I’d be paying off student loans and possibly investing in a few stocks. I’d be driving a Ford Escape (I miss that car) or a Toyota Rav4 or a comparable SUV to get me through the Northeast winters.
It would be a decent life. Slightly vanilla, but decent. I’d like to think, however, that I’d be changing the world and molding young minds through my teaching. I maybe even would have mentored a student teacher or two by that point.
Life in 2016…
If you had walked up to 2016 Mike and said “Czech Republic” with no other context, I would have said that it was a country in Europe, an opponent to Team USA in a big hockey game, or an answer to a Jeopardy question (fun fact: Albany and Prague were both answers in the same Jeopardy game a couple of weeks ago).
Living abroad? A global pandemic? Tom Brady being on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Nope. None of these things would have remotely crossed my mind.
Seeing how far off I would have been on that question five years ago, let’s embarrass ourselves even more and see how we do with trying to predict life in 2026.
Will I still be in the Czech Republic? My initial instinct would be to say no. The original plan had been for no longer than a year. Now, we’re going on Year 3. I’m very proud of that, but it also partially makes me believe that I may be living on borrowed time. Plus, my parents will be getting up there in age and my student loans will be getting up there in debt. Also, as I’ve said in past blogs, a number of my friends have left recently or will leave soon, adding to my isolation and the feeling of missing family (if you’re an expat and claim that you have never experienced that feeling, you’re wrong). But if I’ve learned two things from this experience, it’s these: a) I’m resilient and b) Never say never. If I’m not here, could I still be teaching abroad? It’s possible. Places I’ve considered in the past include South Korea, Vietnam, Italy, and the Middle East. Again, the possibilities are endless.
Will I still be teaching? I would say yes. I’ve become passionate about teaching and have built up my experience. Teaching abroad will get my foot in a lot of doors if I do decide to head back to America. My niche is definitely children and teens, so most likely one of those age groups.
Will I have a family? Come on, don’t be silly. I’m 31 years old. If it were ever going to happen for me, it would have happened by now. If it didn’t happen at 31, it sure as hell isn’t happening at 36. I would absolutely love to look back on this post in five years and be wrong. But I’m sorry, that’s the one area of my life that I can’t have any sort of optimism about. This blog isn’t about relationships, though, it’s about TEFL, so let’s move on to Question 2…
Where will you be in 10 years?
I know, more predictable than the NHL Playoffs. But still a valid question.
Let’s rewind to 2011. I had just graduated Springfield College with a degree in sports journalism. I was perusing the upstate New York market for journalism jobs with reputable newspapers such as The Albany Times-Union, the Troy Record, and the Schenectady Gazette. I wound up at none of the three and eventually took my talents to Ohio because I really was confident that journalism was the path for me.
But if we want to get technical and go back to June 6, 2011, my answer would have been that I’d be working as a reporter or copy editor for one of those publications, maybe doing some blog writing or online posts on the side. I’d be making $30,000, using my own car (I didn’t actually have a car at that time, but it was coming soon) to go to stories, and perfecting the art of the old-fashioned tape recorder. Recording audio on my phone? Please. I don’t even remember if I had a smartphone in 2011.
LIFE in 2011…
Bianca and Evan have gotten a bit bigger since then. She’s going to college in the fall. He’s starting high school. Yikes. 
She’s not going to be happy that her picture is on this blog, but here’s my mother and I. 
My friends and I after I won a PRIDE Award. 
The Boston metro. Little did I know that 10 years later, I’d be riding a metro every day, in a foreign country no less! 
My first car, the ol’ reliable Ford Focus.
I’d probably have to live in my mom’s apartment for quite some time. Not glamorous, but writing was my number one passion at that point, so I’d make it work. It would be a good, central starting point for me to make my way to high school football games or town hall meetings or Andrew Cuomo speeches (yes, New York has had the misfortune of having to deal with him for that long).
My answers to the family and Czech Republic questions would be more or less the same. If you had told me I’d be a teacher, I’d laugh at you. The only teaching experience had at that point was in high school when National Honor Society students took over the teaching of classes for a day. Honestly, that experience was so unmemorable that I don’t even remember what I taught that day (maybe Earth Science?).
Now the really scary part? Let’s move ahead to 2031. Jack Eichel and the New York Rangers have just won their third Stanley Cup in four years, and the woefully inadequate returns acquired by the Sabres are long since out of the NHL. The Oakland A’s have moved (although, sadly, not to Montreal). Someone who we’ve never even heard of yet is President of the United States. The coronavirus is merely an afterthought.
What is 41-year-old me doing?
I’d like to think that I’d still be impacting the lives of others, hopefully in a positive way. I’ll still be a tireless advocate for mental health. I’ll be helping my 80-year-old parents in any way that I can and be proud of my nieces and nephews as they build families of their own (my siblings as grandparents? Yikes!). A lot of things will change in the next decade, but my tendency to put others before myself will live on. Some tell me that I do this to the point where it gets extreme. But you know what? I want the world to be a better place for my great-nieces and great-nephews (or is it grand-nieces and grand-nephews?). If you’re not putting in the effort to improve society for future generations, then what are you doing here?
That’s a 5- and 10-year plan that I can get behind.
Czeching Out the World of TEFL 