Fortune Cookie #11 - Chinese Beauracracy

Sometimes it feels like our move to China is never going to happen. I know we will get there, but the process has been much more frustrating than I had anticipated. This was the first thing I thought of when I saw this fortune.

You will conquer obstacles to achieve success

The obstacles we have encountered mostly involve the mountains of paperwork required to petition the Chinese government to grant us permission to work in their country.

I am in no way an expert on international travel and employment, but I do know that the requirements vary greatly from country to country. In most countries, a foreigner will need a work visa in order to work there. You simply apply for a work visa instead of a tourist visa and you are good to go. However, China is harder to get into than the Playboy mansion. You must have an invitation.

We've had our fingerprints run for criminal background checks. We've sent our resumes to have them translated into Mandarin. They needed our marriage license, our original college degrees, copies of our passports, some new passport-type photos, letters of reference from the places we have worked to ensure the accuracy of our resumes and a health physical.

They have received everything they need from us except for two pieces of paperwork. My TESOL certification and the paperwork from our physicals. These papers have proven to be more troublesome than Ryan Lochte's account from his night out in Rio.

I don't actually have a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certificate and there is a reason for this. I shouldn't need one.

I spent two years going to graduate school to get my Master's degree in TESOL. This means I have a Master's degree. That is supposed to be an impressive document. The TESOL certificate can be obtained by attending some weekend classes for a month. It is a much, much, MUCH smaller undertaking. Having a Master's degree trumps having a certificate. No one would ask a doctor to see proof that he has taken a CPR course because he is a doctor.

Now, this may be frustrating, but I understand. Sort of. Things work differently in different countries. Paperwork and regulations vary from place to place and carry different weight. Add a language and cultural barrier into the mix and it can get quite complicated. Since their paperwork says I have to produce a TESOL certificate, if I can't do that, then I have not met their requirements. No amount of explaining (or tears) will change that.

Luckily, I went to the fantastic school Lincoln Christian University. I called them and explained my dilemma. Since I had more than met the requirements of what it takes to get a certificate from them in getting my Master's, they agreed to issue me a certificate. I love my school. I should get it on August 31.

The second obstacle has yet to be conquered. We are required to get a health physical. Anyone coming to work in China needs to be of reasonably good health and not be bringing particular communicable diseases into their country. This makes sense. However, getting this physical is not easy. It must be performed at a Chinese Embassy-approved facility and we must bring the proper forms to have filled out by the doctor.

These forms are nowhere to be found on the internet and even our employer in China has no idea where to find them. We also have had no luck in finding out where these embassy-approved facilities are. It's like a real-life Where's Waldo book. After literally hundreds of phone calls to the embassy in Chicago for the last six weeks, we are no closer to the answer than when we started. Plus, once I get all excited about getting naked in front of someone, it just has to happen before I can get a good night sleep.

I know these roadblocks will eventually be overcome and we will end up in China in the end. It has just been a very frustrating process. I'm sticking it out for the endless supply of fried wontons.

"M" is for Master's Degree

From the time I started my Bachelor's Degree to the time I received it was fourteen years. I lost my focus there for a while and even moved out of the country during that time. However, as soon as I finished (finally), I immediately started on my Master's. This one I am not getting distracted from.

Whatever life may throw at me, I will finish without interruption. On my current schedule, I should be finishing my last class in September of 2014. That will be just a few months after my daughter graduates high school. She will go off to college and I will move away never to talk to her again.

She insists that I have to tell her where I am going so she will have a place to stay in the summer time. I takes me a while to stop laughing. She hasn't yet decided if I am joking or not.

The truth is…I don't know where I'm going when I graduate. Ideally, I would like to move close to Red so we can be close enough to become a part of each other's daily routine. However, life doesn't always work out the way you want it to. Once I have my degree, I will want to start working in that field as soon a possible and will need to go wherever the work is. I don't yet know how, but I'm sure we'll work it out.

I may have graduated high school 25 years ago and am just now getting my education, but my future is starting to look exciting. I don't know where this will take me, but I am glad to be on the journey.

I feel like I am cheating with these short posts.

macrocephalous
malacissation
manganiferous
microspectrophotometries 

Now I feel a little better about it. 

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Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, 1,861 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

"L" is for Lincoln

Some of the best years of my life were when I was in college in Lincoln, Illinois. I know many people claim college to be their best years, but mine were not stereotypical. It wasn't because of partying. I was just insanely happy and made some lifelong friends.

Three hours south of Chicago

Lincoln is right in the center of Illinois, about 30 miles north of the capital Springfield on I-55. There are a lot of places that claim to have a connection to Abraham Lincoln, but for this town, the claim is true. Lincoln, Illinois was named after Abraham Lincoln before he even became president. In fact, he was present the day they officially named the town and he christened the town by smashing a watermelon on the town square. 'Honest Abe' practiced law in the courthouse a few times a month when he rode up from Springfield.

The town of Lincoln is home to two colleges. Lincoln College is a private liberal arts college and Lincoln Christian University which is one of the first Restoration Movement colleges (it was Lincoln Bible Institute in the beginning).

This is the school where I got my Bachelor's Degree in Christian Ministry and am currently working on my Master's in TESOL. I love this school. I briefly went to another college in between degrees, but had been spoiled for Lincoln and came back.

During the beginning years of my undergraduate studies, I lived in married student housing with my family. Like most college students, we were flat broke and wondered every month how we were going to pay the rent. We soon learned how wonderful it was to be a part of a great group of friends who relied on each other.

In the summer time, the families from the surrounding apartment buildings would pull all the picnic tables together and bring what food they had. Fifteen to twenty families would share. We cooked out, ate well and enjoyed each other's company. It was wonderful. It became an unintentional, big, happy family. We laughed and cried together, took trips and classes together, studied together, prayed together, got to know each other's extended families and took care of each other's kids.

Today, over 10 years later, I am still in contact with most of those people. A few of them I talk to several times a week. As much as we struggled, I wouldn't trade that time for anything.

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Happily participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For the entire month of April, 1,868 bloggers are working their way through the alphabet. One letter every day but Sundays for a total of 26 days.

Click here to visit the website and get more information to see if you might want to join in next year. It's a lot of fun, introduces you to hundreds of new blogs and gives your writing some fantastic exposure.

Pretty Blue Toenails

This post is a response to Finish the Sentence Friday...
at Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine with My Morning Quiet Time?

This weeks question:
One time when I was bored out of my mind…

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When I was in college, I was what the college labeled a 'non-traditional' student. I was not considered traditional because I was over 25 years old. I could also get that label from having children. The third way was to be married. I met all three of those criteria. I was a 30 year old married man with two kids.

While I have no regrets about going back to college, I will advise people that what I did is NOT the way to do it. Do what you have to do, but if you have the opportunity to plan it out, do college first. Turning in poop stained term papers from changing a diaper while doing your homework is always a possibility otherwise. Most professors will mark off for a paper that literally stinks.

I had always thought of myself as still a young person until I had this adventure. The kids (and I choose that term purposefully) I sat in class with did not relate to my life. I made a few friends, but we were at different places in maturity. Plus, in the summertime, they all left campus and went home. We had actually moved there and lived in married student housing. The campus was our home year round. Technically, we lived on campus despite it not being in the dorms and in the summertime the place was dead.

I enjoyed my years at school, but without classes to go to the summers left us with a lot of free time. I often found myself doing things I would never normally do, but I had time to kill. It was this extra time that lead to a moment that I am less than proud of.

Our third summer in college, my daughter was four years old and had just discovered make up and understood the concept of getting pretty and playing dress up. Of course, she hadn't started wearing make up yet, but sometimes her mother and her would play with lipstick, blush and mascara. Kirsten loved doing this.

One Saturday morning, Kirsten brought me some nail polish and wanted me to paint her toenails. I had done this a few times before and had actually gotten pretty good at it. I kept the colors inside the lines and everything. Once I got her toes looking all pretty, she asked if she could do mine.

Not my feet, but best picture I could find of color.

She didn't normally get to play with fingernail polish because of the huge potential for a mess, especially in the hands of a four year old, but I decided to let her have a little more fun. So, we stepped out onto the balcony and I let her do my toenails. It may not be the most manly thing to do, but I was bonding with my daughter…AND for a four year old, she did a marvelous job. We cleaned up the spots were she got a little off target and when it was finished, they looked pretty good. I now had sparkly blue toenails.

We sat outside and drank sweet tea while we let our nails dry. It was a beautiful day, we had just had a good time together and I didn't give what I had done a second thought…until my wife saw them. After she finished laughing, she gave me a hard time about it, but it was soon forgotten.

The next day, I was out in the playground with my kids. Soon, a few other fathers came to join us and it wasn't long until one of them looked down at my bare feet and commented on my pretty toes. He called out for everyone within earshot to come look at my feet.

Knowing that I had been discovered and also knowing that I was amongst friends, I proudly showed them off and withstood all the teasing, well aware that it was going to come for a long time after this. I decided right then that when I went back in the house, I needed to take the time to remove the polish. I didn't regret putting it on, but there was no reason to keep it.

When lunchtime came around, I gathered my kids and started back to my apartment. As I rounded the corner, I ran into the Dean of Students. He had come by to welcome a few new families who would be starting in the fall. We exchanged a few pleasantries and he suddenly stopped talking as he glanced down and noticed my toes sparkling in the sun. He just stared at them silently for a few seconds as I tried to curl my toes under my feet.

When he looked up again, he slowly finished what he was saying and excused himself. He didn't ask about the polish and I didn't offer any explanation. In fact, I don't think I said a word. I just stood there. Red-faced.

I removed the polish as soon as I got back to the apartment. The Dean has still never asked about the blue toes.

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One time when I was bored out of my mind…I polished my toenails.

Why I Want To Teach

Two days ago, I asked my readers to pose questions for me to answer. That post and their questions can be found here. Rachel of When a Lion Sleeps, Let It Sleep asked me five questions. I addressed four of them yesterday and will be tackling the last one today.

Rachel asked me why I wanted to be a teacher. This same question was also asked by Brandie Boddie of Penning Praises back in August 2011 and I never properly addressed it.

Addressing flood relief workers
in Eastland, Texas

For the last 15 years, I have been a teacher in some capacity. Whether it was through jobs I've had, working at my church, summer camp or volunteering somewhere. I have taught kids and adults. I am often asked to lead meetings at my places of employment. I am usually the one who gathers information to share or teach to the other employees. In 1990, before people had the computer familiarity they have today, I was put in charge of the college computer labs because I had a talent for helping people understand what needed to be done. These are practices that have been part of who I am since I left high school.

When I moved to Puerto Rico in 2001, my job had two primary responsibilities. I was the pastor of a church and the administrator of a school with over 300 students. During this time, I taught on a regular basis and loved every minute of it. However, for some reason, it never occurred to me to become a "teacher."

A couple of years ago, when I moved to Moweaqua to finish my degree, I immediately sought out the minister and youth minister of my new church to introduce myself and get myself plugged in so I could start working with people and begin teaching. This was just a natural train of thought for me, but I still wasn't thinking of teacher as a profession.

It wasn't until my last semester of school that I finally figured it out at forty years old. I was reading a magazine article about the age of most public school teachers. According to this article, almost a quarter of today's teachers will be retiring within the next 10 years. As I continued to read, something stirred inside me. Over the course of the next couple of days, I continued to think about this article and began looking up more information. It was slowly occurring to me that I was built for this profession. By the end of the week, I couldn't figure out why I hadn't made this decision years before.

I started the process at school to be able to transfer to a school of education as soon as I graduated the following semester. I got my Bachelor's degree at Lincoln Christian University and started on my Master's at Greenville the next year. I have made a couple of changes since then as I try to decide exactly what I want to teach, but teaching has stayed at the center of my education.

I started out with the intention of being a high school math teacher since I am good at math but was never really excited about it. I have since veered away from the public school focus and am pursuing a degree in ESL. (English as a Second Language) This will combine my love of teaching with my passion for missions and interacting with people of other cultures. ESL is also the second largest job in demand worldwide. Not only will I be in a field that I love, but in this competitive and difficult job market, I have an excellent chance at finding work.

Ideally, I would like to work in a university setting, but I will see where this takes me. I expect to graduate in May of 2014.

Broken Promises

I like to have my blogs posted in the morning, but this one is going up very late. It is also not the post I intended to make. In my post on Monday, I requested suggestions from my readers on topics to write about in future posts. You can look at the original post and comments left here. This idea was born as I was writing the post and was not what I had in mind when I started typing that morning. That is what I get for sitting down to write without knowing where I was going with my words. As a result of that post and the suggestions I was given, I had intended to address the first topic I was given. However, life does not always play out the way we intend it to.

I took my daughter to school this morning and was coming home to take a quick shower so I could then concentrate on writing about 'planking', as suggested by Kalen Soger in Mondays post. As I was dropping my daughter off, Kyle (my brother) called me to ask why I wasn't home. Since he is self-employed and his children are home schooled, he forgets about how the rest of us are still slaves to that infernal clock. I told him I would be back home in a few minutes if he wanted to wait for me. He did wait and was sitting in a lawn chair in my front yard when I pulled in the driveway. I sat in another chair and we just talked and enjoyed each others' company. We talked about ministry, our jobs, my new neighbors, our kids, travel and a variety of other topics. After a while, Kyle mentioned that he needed to head home, so I get up and check the time on my phone. It was 3:15. We had sat outside for seven hours. I even still had my keys, I had never gone in the house. I then realized that it was supposed to be 102 degrees today. If it did get that hot, we never noticed.

Because of this, I did not get the blog written that I had intended to write. I do not regret this. I enjoy my time with my brother and will not let this blog get in the way of my life, but I did set a personal goal to blog every Monday and Friday. To write the blog I meant to write today will take a little bit of time, so it is not getting written today. It will be posted on Monday. The only reason I am making this entry is to keep the promise I made to myself and my readers.

Here are the topic suggestions I will be tackling in the next few weeks.

• Kalen Soger wanted to hear my take on the recent fad of PLANKING. I will cover this on Monday and explain the adventure we had while attempting this new phenomenon. DONE (9-3-11)
• Shane Morgan asked what I would choose to be my last meal on earth and how would I make my decision. I haven't figured out yet, why I am in a situation that I have to make this choice, but the question definitely promotes some thought. DONE (5-23-2012)
• Adam Elliott challenged me to write about the difference in the TV ratings system over the decades and the evolution of what is considered acceptable for television. There has definitely been a change over the years.
• Jessica Patch had more of an adventure based week in mind. She suggested doing something I had never done before every day for a week and blogging about each experience. It will make for an interesting week.
• Ian Cates gave me one word, but it was a wonderful word: BACON. DONE (12-16-2011)
• Tammy Soule wants a study on how Facebook has changed the way we relate to each other. Is it good or bad to be so 'in touch'? Good question, Tammy. DONE (5-31-2012)
• My new friend from Colorado, Brandi Boddie, wants to hear more about what lead me to pursue a career in teaching. It is self-reflection time. DONE (11-29-2012)
• Kyle Minor, my brother, wants to know who would win in a fight between Mr. Rogers and Pee Wee Herman. I have been thinking this one over and it is going to require some research. DONE (12-1-11)
• Mary Stark challenged me to write a story. I have not done this on this blog yet, so it will be a change in genre for that post. She asked me to go to a cemetery, pick the plot of someone I do not know and 'weave a tale' about that person.
• Stephanie Maines wants to hear about the places I want to travel to and why. I think I could write on that topic forever.
• Jayson Ferguson is not included on the comment section because Blogger was giving him some trouble, but he sent his suggestion in via Facebook. Jayson and I went to Lincoln Christian University together about 10 years ago, and we got into more than our share of trouble while we were there. He would like me to write about some of those adventures. Jayson, it looks like some of our hijinks are about about to come to light. Now that I have my degree, what can they do? DONE (4-1-12)

You can see all the original comments (with the exception of Jayson's) by clicking here and scrolling down to the comment section directly under the blog entry. I will address each one of these over the course of the next few weeks. I may write about other things in the mean time. For instance, I intend to give my recollection of 9/11 next week and I am turning 40 on September 19. I have to write about that. Thank you to all of you who participated and be watching for me to cover your topic.

Look Out, World...I'm Back!

When I first started this blog seven months ago, I listed things about myself so my potential future readers could get to know me.  One of the items on that list stated that it has taken me 14 years to get my Bachelor’s degree.  That statement back in October was more speculative than fact, although a week from now, it will be true.  I am very proud to say that I will be a college graduate in one more week.

I never meant for it to take this long.  When I got out of high school, I went to college like most people do.  However, I hadn’t really given it a lot of thought.  I went to college because that is what you are supposed to do after high school.  I withdrew from my classes in the middle of my third semester at Rend Lake College.  I really didn’t want to be there.

I was excited to go to college at first.  I was finally out of high school and it was time to venture into adulthood, but the vision quickly fizzled when I got to RLC.  It took about a month for me to come to the conclusion that nothing had really changed.  I felt like I was still in high school.  College was supposed to be bigger and better, but the only things different were the increased commute time and number of students on campus.  The classes weren’t even harder.  What was the point?  DISCLAIMER:  I want to make it clear that I am not bashing Rend Lake College or any community college.  They have their place, but I expected so much more than what I experienced.

I definitely could have made better choices, but I was 19 and wanted to get on with my life.  I quit school, moved out of my parents house and ventured north to be with the girl I was dating at the time.  We were together for about another year before I moved back to my home town.

Fast forward about ten years and I had reached a point in my life where I knew it was time to get serious.  I was a year into my second marriage, had two kids, had become a Christian and decided I wanted to go into ministry.  The spring semester of 1998 I started classes at Lincoln Christian College (now Lincoln Christian University).  College was a whole different experience this time.

We moved into Married Student Housing and I hit the campus full-time.  This time I wanted to be there and instead of barely making it through my classes, I was on the Dean’s List.  I loved it.  It was difficult to balance the family with school and definitely challenging to find time to sleep, but I pushed through.  With the exception of one semester of part-time studies, I went full-time for three and a half years.

The summer before my senior year I accepted a job as minister at a church in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The plan was to incorporate this job into my internship and finish my schooling through distance learning.  It may have delayed my degree by a semester or two, but I would be working in my field already.  A small delay would not be an issue.  However, things did not work out that way.

Due to a variety of issues, we were only on the island for seven months.  I will tell that story in a future blog.  None of my schooling had been started yet and we came back to the States.  After bouncing around for months of not being able to find decent work and living with my grandmother, we decided to go back to Lincoln.  We were there one semester before I was kicked out (another story I will tell in a future blog).

Seven years later I start taking classes through distance learning.  Just a class or two per semester.  I even took two classes that were on campus.  Once a week I would drive three hours for a class and then drive three hours home.  I was accumulating more credits, but it was a tediously slow process.  Finally, last November, I started full-time again.  I decided I need to get this finished and finally have it behind me.  I even doubled up on classes to get it done faster.  I took 24 hours this semester; it has been rough.

I have a few more papers due in the next week, but nothing I am worried about.  Last night I turned in a rough draft for a major assignment.  It has had me stressed for the last month, but was the last big assignment.  I have to fix it for the final paper, but the bulk of the work is done.  As soon as I hit the send button to my professor last night, I felt a huge weight fall off my shoulders.

I have opted to skip the ceremony (en absentia - LATIN: see how smart I am now) and just have my degree mailed to me, but I am attending a graduation banquet tomorrow night.  I am not interested in sitting in a stuffy room for hours after spending money for a black robe I will only wear once, but the opportunity for free food cannot be turned down.

I will finally have that piece of paper.  I started at Lincoln in the spring of 1998, so it only took me 13 ½ years, unless you want to count when I first started at Rend Lake, then it makes 21 years.  I will, at long last, be able to say I am a college graduate.  I do welcome any congratulations, but would more appreciate prayers.  I am starting my Master’s Degree next semester and would love to complete it before I retire.