China approaches...

As china approaches I have been doing all the preparation and organising. Once I had the medical form completed and sent off to china I had to wait for the forms to come back from the school inviting me as an 'expert' so I could then apply to the Chinese embassy for a z (working) visa.

So it with some excitement that I got this envelope

And yes inside were all the relevant documents from China. They of course went into another envelope with my passport and the relevant forms downloaded from the Chinese embassy website to apply for the z visa

4 days later this is what I had in my sticky hand

Yes the Chinese visa IN MY PASSPORT! Woo hoo!

Next, of course was purchasing the ticket.

I am flying on the 22nd August to Beijing by Cathay Pacific. I have to be in Beijing for a 2 day seminar being held in a hotel by the agency employing me.  The ticket was £506 single which the agency will reimburse.

In other news I have also been doing some serious pre Nanjing shopping.

1. This blog is being written on my new Apple Mac Book Pro!  I got a brilliant bargain using my 'educational' discount because Im still an employee of the University. Almost £200 off the RRP plus a £65 voucher to use in Itunes Apple shop etc.

Here it is:

Apple products are so well packaged, its a joy just to look at the packaging, let alone the thrill of opening it.

So cooooool eh?

Although it was a struggle syncing all my songs off my iphone onto this macs itunes, apple are such arses sometimes about what you can and cannot do with their tech.

And because I have been told that english books are few and far between in the shops in Nanjing this had to be a must buy buy

Yes I got my self a Kindle. Not downloaded any books onto it yet though.

And on advice I bought these

Yes roll on deoderant! Im told you cannot get it in China! So yes 10 roll ons for 10 months.

Is that enough? 

Trains and Planes and Automobiles

Its official, Im on the scrapheap!

Had confirmation today that my voluntary redundancy from the university is confirmed - woohoo.

I was getting a bit worried to be honest as time is moving on and the agency in China had started to talk about gettinig visa's and airplane tickets and seminars in Bejing and I hadn't heard from the university.

But now its real.

So its just been three months since I made my decision - the time has flown and in another three months I will be leaving for China.

The agency have given me the email addressess of the teachers I will be working with. Anna who has been at the school for a while and will act as my mentor and Sherree who will be a new teacher there with me. So its all exciting and theres lots to think about.

But its happeniing :-)

The first day of the rest of my life.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Today I had a meeting with my director and asked if I could be considered for voluntary redundancy. Whilst she didn't say yes or no, she said she will put it to HR. So I guess I am in with a chance.

I work in a British university, not on the academic side, although I was once a sociologist and taught sociology here, I am now on the admin side. In the current climate of financial cutbacks in HE I am probably in the firing line anyway, they did try unsuccessfully to make me redundant about 3 years ago, so I was not holding my breath this time. But I have decided to be the master of my own future and to apply for the voluntary redundancy.

So this blog is going to chart my new start.

First Steps:

I have already, as I have noted, discussed this with my Director and we await the outcome.

I have already had my house valued and will put it up for sale shortly.

And my aim, for my future, is to teach English in China initially and hopefully see some of the world before my old bones succumb.

I have sourced a TEFL course for the 120 hour certificate I will need to teach English

So this is is.

This is the start........the first blog post, obviously more to come.

You can follow me as well on twitter as @trebornotrub