Thoughts about China.....

I know that it may seem selfish to leave my family to live in another part of the world. I wanted to give some background on why Lloyd and I came to this decision. I did not travel outside of the United States until I was an adult and it was life-changing. The last thing I want is for my kids to get stuck in the bubble of White America. Lloyd was born in the Philippines also has a very wide spread view of the world. Staying in one place for the rest of your life can encourage very closed-minded thinking. I realize that I will miss many important family events and milestones back home. Being near family one of my top priorities, but I feel like preparing my children for the future is an even higher priority.

Lloyd and I first started talking about me going to China in December. When I got hired by VIPKID, I started getting contacted by schools asking if I was willing to teach in China. While I was pretty fed up with the schools in Colorado for both my own career and my children's education, I thought, "Are you crazy?! I have a family to take care of!" When I mentioned it to Lloyd, he said, "What an amazing opportunity! We can make this work." When I mentioned it to the kids, Carly got really excited and wanted to come with me.

I still could not make the decision to go. I researched everything about the country. I picked up a book called, "Little Soldiers" which gave me great insight into Chinese education and culture. The book is about an American citizen who decided to move to China to raise her son. She was very honest and talked about everything she encountered when moving to and living in China.

I was still not ready to make the move. I looked into teaching jobs and kept turning down more jobs because I didn't feel like the pay was worth the move. I really wanted to take the kids with me. I had decided that I would only go if the pay was high enough to enroll my kids in a top International school. Even though teaching in another country would be great for my career, I thought it would be even better for the kids.

Around March of this year, Lloyd and I gave up on the idea of going to China and ended up enrolling the kids in their school in Castle Rock for another year. Carly was actually really upset about this. She had been asking me every day when we were moving to China. She can make friends anywhere and she doesn't have best friends, just lots of friends. She also gets very bored in school and I worry that she is not getting challenged. Her report cards have always been straight A's.

Ironically, just 2 weeks after we gave up on the idea of moving to China, VIPKID sent me a special invitation for a job in Beijing. They said they would cover my living expenses and I would make around $3000/month. This would be enough money for me to enroll Carly in a school. The only downside to this was that my hours would be on evenings and weekends. I was worried that I would not get enough time to experience China with Carly.

I knew I had to be 100% sure of the job before I made a big move, so I kept looking. I saw that a top International school in China was hiring a 4th grade teacher and they also offered free tuition for dependents. The school contacted me for an interview. After my first interview, they brought me back for a 2nd interview and I got the job. The school has a strong track record of preparing students for top universities, including Harvard, Princeton, McGill, UC Berkeley and Stanford and their tuition is high. The teach all subjects in English, except for Chinese language class.

The next step was seeing if Carly could get into the school. She needed straight A's and a letter of recommendation from her previous school. I was able to get this to the school very quickly. I hoped that Connor and Camilla would also come, but I did not realize how important their friendships were back home. I know that it is an extremely scary thing to do and Carly and I have always been the ones who have no fear.

After talking with Lloyd, we both agreed that this would be an invaluable opportunity for both Carly and I. We are comfortable with this decision for many reasons. Even though we will be separating the family, we believe that good will come from the separation. Carly and I will develop a stronger bond while Lloyd will have more parenting control back home. This will be a role change and will allow us to develop new and different relationships with our children. This is also going to allow us more financial freedom to repair and possibly sell our home. Carly will become more mature, disciplined, educated, multilingual, and have a greater sense of the world. I will become more accepting of other cultures and multilingual. I will also be a more respected, educated, and experienced teacher.

Connor and Camilla are now talking about coming to live in Beijing in 2019/2020 while I am teaching for my 2nd year in China. I really hope that all 3 kids can experience this for at least a year. It will be scary and we will be very homesick, but I believe the benefits are endless. Some things that Carly is sad about are missing family, missing her dogs, missing holidays in Colorado, missing the stock show, and being away from her family on Birthdays.

Carly's list of the things she is most excited about in China:

1. New Friends from all over the world
2. Chinese New Year
3. Better School
4. Travel to other places in China
5. Try new food
6. Experience a new culture
7. Experience a new language
8. Live in a big city
9. Ride scooters and bikes, instead of a car