Alonzo

I am now studying for my teaching license. I decided to do the elementary school exam. 

Anyone here that has taught in all 3 school levels? 

The reason why I chose elementary school is because that is the stage in life before the children think of adults as idiots. Then once they get to 12 years old, they begin getting the whole "Whatever! You aren't the boss of me," attitude.

He promised a pie in the sky:

build a wall across the entire border between United States and Mexico;

set congressional term limits in congress;

replace the Affordable Care Act;

create paid family leave for mothers (this one is more of Ivanka's promise);

revoke Roe V Wade and bring the decision of abortion laws back to the states.

A couple of his promises have already been watered down. Instead of a brick wall between the countries, they are now saying that it is not financially possible, but they can try to double wire fence the border. In addition, he recently said that he agrees with parts of the Affordable Care Act, and he will keep the provision of not denying health insurance due to pre-existing conditions.

Does this not bother any of you Trump voters that he has already had to back off of a couple of his campaign promises before he has even been inaugurated? How much time will you give him before you starting thinking in your mind, "Hmm, I don't think that we are going to get what we voted for..."

By the way, before someone replies with "What about Obama's promises?" I did not vote for Obama. I disagreed with his legislation of providing tax subsidies for green energy and the stimulus package.

I find it funny how the trump supporters are seizing Hilary's words and are both proud and offended to be part of the basket of deplorables. She said half of his supporters are part of that basket. Why do you assume that she is talking about you? Believe it or not, you may fall into the other-half.

I will be moving to China in January. What are some good Chinese online shopping websites? People tell me that it is best to buy antiperspirant and clothing online. East Asian deodorant is very weak, and it makes you still sweat through the shirt, and their clothing tend to be made for short skinny people.

What websites have an English version and displays the currency in yuan? I notice that if a website does have an English version, you can only pay in dollars, but in China, I will only have yuan to pay with.

I always hear about that added to ESL jobs in China. What is it? I did some reading that by law in China, a probation period can not last more than 1 month.

My ESL China job search is beginning to get into the Z visa application phase. I have now narrowed my search to one language school that is offering me the best salary and benefits. I currently plan on this being a lifetime career where I teach in China for a year, come back to the United States for 6 months, and I go back to work in China for a year. That would be my rinse-and-repeat career path.

However, I have now suddenly thought, what about my retirement plans? What do I do once I hit 60 years old and can no longer physically wrestle around with the kindergartners? Since I would be paying taxes in China, I would not receive social security here once I get to retirement age.

My teaching abroad job search is beginning to narrow, and I am now down to two language centers that are willing to hire me. Due to my no teaching experience, they told me that they can put me into either a 2nd tier city or a 3rd tier city. However, I would not be eligible for a Z visa within a 1st tier city.

Has anyone here had experience with living in both a 2nd tier city and a 3rd tier city? Are the conditions in 3rd tier cities noticeably worse? Squatter toilets? Dirty environment? However, I hear that 3rd tier cities can be enjoyable because of how cheap everything costs: food and an apartment, so it is almost impossible to run out of money in 3rd tier cities.

I am a teaching abroad noob, so I kind of need assurance from a few people who have been through this process about whether I am getting scammed or not. Also, I will preface with saying that I applied to the school a few weeks ago, and they denied my application because of no teaching experience, and I do not have a TEFL. However, a recruiter was able to convince someone in the company that my Bachelor of English and experience as an exchange student in Korea is satisfactory. They will give me a chance by putting me through TEFL training and see what happens.

Benefit package in yuan figures:

8,000 per month salary

4,000 per month housing allowance

Prepaid flight to Beijing (very rarely do Chinese schools pay for the flight)

6,000 entrance allowance

8,000 airfare bonus once I complete 12 months of work

TEFL sponsorship

A maximum of working 5 days a week

Other than English First telling me that they will re-evaluate my résumé and get back to me if I qualify, no other Chinese school seems interested in hiring me.

I am trying to begin my career as an abroad teacher in China. I have a Bachelor of English, so I feel that this would be a good way of putting my degree to use.

During the application process, they seem to always ask for me to scan and send them my passport information page. Is that normal to do? It seems very...back alley. So far, I have not sent them private information like that, and I will wait until an official contract signing happens.

With the three dominant East Asian languages: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, people always tell me that Japanese is the easiest language to learn out of the three. However, I find Korean to be the easiest while I think Japanese is the most difficult. With Korean, there is an alphabet with one writing system. Japanese has three writing systems (even after you memorize both alphabets, you are not finished. You then have a long list of important Chinese characters to learn).

Last year, I was an exchange student in Korea, so at this point, I can read 한글 without even thinking about it. Anyway, why do a lot of people put an unfair burden of Korean being a beast of a language to learn? It is not that bad. Do I just happen to have a unique brain that can digest the Korean language?

Here are a few that I view on a daily basis. I rarely say anything to the person because I am sure that I have some habits that I do without even realizing it:

People that say "bucks" instead of dollars. This more stems from me having a degree in English, so I do not understand why someone would prefer a slang term when the real term is only 1 syllable longer.

People that do not push in chairs back to underneath the table. Someone who is not bright eyed and bushy tailed could accidentally walk into the unpushed chair and cause a mild accident.

People that say "I am sorry" all of the time in order to stop talking about something. When I was an exchange student in Korea, this happened on a daily basis where I asked someone a question, and they respond back with the "Me so sorry...Me so sorry..." bit.

I am thinking about buying a used iPhone on ebay. The four-year-old iPod Touch that I am using now has a battery that is basically dead.

Once I get a steady job where I can pay for a monthly cell phone plan, then I will sign up for T-mobile.

Can the iPhone be used like an iPod Touch? Or once I turn on the phone, it will require me to put in my carrier's information?

There was a job posting in Upwork for an English teacher to travel and work in China. After doing a bit of research, I have found the website for the organization, www.jobplacementchina.com .

So far, all that I have done is set up a proposal in Upwork and sent a "Hello" to a person on Skype who will go over the offer in more detail. I will say that if this is a scam, the scammers are very slow in responding to my questions. It takes about a whole day to get one of my questions answered.

Does this draw a lot of red flags for something that I should immediately stop doing and forget about? I would really like this to be legitimate...I have recently earned a Bachelor's of English, and I think this sounds like the perfect opportunity for me to work and do international travel.

Has anybody here lived in both countries?

I used to be an exchange student in Korea, and I have now been offered an English teaching job in China.

Other than the language, what were the major differences that you noticed?

Easy: archery. That sport is the most likely where you can win the gold just by a fluke. Such as if it is extremely windy outside, and that throws off the professionals around you, but by sheer luck you hit a bulls-eye.

Difficult: uneven bars gymnastics. There is absolutely no way of BSing this sport without years of practice. Very few athletes receive a perfect 10 score.

During the primaries, most states were either winner-take-most or by voter proportion. However, during the official November voting, the rules seemed to be thrown out and almost all states turn into winner-take-all.

As a democrat in Texas, that bothers me because it makes me feel as if my vote does not matter. I am sure that republicans in states such as California and Hawaii feel the same.

If the electoral college system were to be altered by voter proportion, that would help with making my vote feel meaningful. The democrats and I in my region could think, "Hey, we were able to help our candidate get one electoral college vote. That's something."

Each family does at least one daily activity differently. What are some rules in your house that you know annoy guests?

With my family, there are 2 things that sticks out: We do not push in chairs all the way to under the dining room table. We have a cat and 2 dogs, so we need to keep the chairs at least a meter far away from the table or else they would jump up onto the table. Also, we keep our bread in the freezer. My mom claims that doing that keeps the bread from expiring, so what we do if we want to use the bread is first put it in the toaster a few times for it to warm up.

It's summer, so we are now at the time when parents bring their children to the grocery store with them, and I do not like how parents these days allow their children to annoy other people.

Have children always been like this, and I am just getting grumpy? When I was growing up, back in the 90s, I can clearly remember parents telling their children, "Hey, if you do not stop that, you are going to get a spanking," However, now, it seems like parents try to be friends with their children.

What's going on?

For example, how would I say, "I was not in United States. I was in Korea."

I know the present tense for that is, "저는 미국에 없슴니다. 저는 한국에 있습니다."

Why when I tell someone that I can't go up or down stairs because my knees are starting to swell up, they ask, "Ah, your knees hurt, do they? Well, how is your throat?"

I do not understand their reaction to my problem...