The Beginning

I don’t remember when my feet began to itch. I never had that sense in childhood that I wanted to travel the world, only a slightly peculiar interest in looking at maps and learning countries’ capitals.

In my early teens, my family changed its holidaying habits to go abroad together for the first time. I was drawn to it, intrigued by a land that was somehow familiar yet different and finally able to apply those previously pointless language lessons in reality. For the next few years, we returned to France at least once a year. By my late teens, my French was pretty good and my mind was set on moving there.

During my university years, my mother’s health failed and I became her full-time, live-in carer on completing the course. It was a mistake for both of us. For her, an over-reliance on me became psychologically and physically debilitating as permanently having me on hand removed her need to retain a degree of self-sufficiency. For me, I was young and restricted and bearing the full brunt of her frustrations. I had become worn down physically and emotionally and the mother-son relationship had fallen apart.

A manager later said to me that TEFL abroad (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) attracted two kinds of people: those who are slightly mad and those wanting to escape. While some might say the former about me, I was certainly the latter and also interested in living abroad, languages and teaching. It was the logical choice.

Seeing an advert for a TEFL-fair at the local university, I went along to learn more. One recruitment company also running language schools sent a representative, who spoke of worldwide opportunities: Spain, France, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Poland and SIBERIA. My mind raced with stereotype images of cold, snow and wilderness and more cold. It sounded perfect and the seed was sown... Little did I know how my life was about to change, how I would change. Two years later I was qualified and on a plane.