I made it! I am an accredited "Teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages" (TESOL) now! That means I have a completed an internationally recognized course, have a shiny diploma and can teach English all over the world now. Of course now I have to think about what to do with this new qualification. The most obvious answer is: Move to China!

Ok - don't panic. I have not packed my backpack yet! I was just saying that this was the obvious answer. And it is! There are tons of open positions in China! I know that some people who had completed the same course as me got offers hours after posting their resume online. And the Chinese pay really well, give you all kinds of benefits and look after you really well. They are desperate for English teachers, so they are more than welcome to hire first time teacher. Of course you might have to teach classes of 300, but who said there wasn't a trade off? But to be honest - I find China or the idea of living in China a bit scary. So I'm not gonna go there. But quite a lot of people from my class will. There and to Japan.

Where to go, what to do?

But of course the course has given my thoughts of moving to a different country new fuel. So far I've always had the problem of not having any useful qualification. I mean, being a journalist is alright, but there ain't any demand for them in other countries. English teachers on the other hand are always in demand. And some of the job-postings I saw are quite simply spectacular! Imagine: a school on Galapagos is currently looking for an English teacher! How cool would that be? What I mean is: having my TESOL qualification the whole world is open to me - much more so than ever before. Well, we'll see what I'll do with it. Maybe I'll return home after this year, unpack, get a shower, go back to my old company, shake my head in horror, leave and get on the next plane to China, Guatemala, Colombia or Cambodia. Or maybe I'll return to the rat race to earn good money and spend my holidays teaching as a volunteer teacher in africa or Nicaragua or... We'll see. At least the course has given me some more food for thought. And a few more options what to do with my life. I could even teach in Sweden now!

Was it worth it?

I reckon I don't really have to answer this question, since it should be pretty obvious by now. But I think the 1500 AUD I invested into my TESOL-course were definitely worth it. We actually learned something in the course and the school will help us to prepare our resumes etc. to find a job. And there are still a few online-courses included in that price that I will start taking now.

Besides it was really good to meet some people who are not backpackers like almost everyone else around me. A lot of people in the course have or had a job and realized at some point that sitting in an office from nine to five can't be what life is about. Now - doesn't that sound familiar? My fellow students came from pretty different backgrounds. One was just 19 years old, others were about my age and yet others were already retired. What most us who had previously held a so called "real" job in common is that we realized that there are more important things than having a so called career. And - I don't know - it was just good to hear that thought from people who have been in the rat race and have or had well paying jobs and not just from sun-tanned surfer-dudes. You know what I mean?

Party, party, party!

Of course, after our little "graduation ceremony", where we were awarded our certificates, we did what all graduates do: We got absolutely hammered! We went from pub to pub and bar to bar, always just keeping ahead of the dreaded "last order" call. We did quite well and got, well, successfully drunk. Very successfully. Very, very successfully. And while the music wasn't very good, the company was excellent and we all had a pretty good night.

A few more days in Brisbane

After having sobered up I decided to stay in Brisbane for a few more days. The city may not be the most exciting place in the world but at least now I have a few people here with whom I can do fun things like going to the movies or to the pub. And besides, there are a few things I want to get done and Brisbane is as good as place to get them done as any other. Among other things I want to write my resume for the teachinternational homepage (it never hurts) and get some of my Australia photos printed. I'm also thinking about submitting some of my Asian photos to international and German photo contests. After all, some of my pics from SE-Asia are really, really good. So why not try and win some amateur photo competition?