How Did I Get Here Part III.

          This is the third part of a series of blog articles. The first in the series can be read here.

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Currently I am living abroad, teaching English to children in Hohhot, China. Even with the pandemic and all of the craziness of this year, I think this is probably the happiest I’ve been job-wise.

But let’s go back a bit.

After college I worked a couple of part-time jobs, working mainly as a sign twirler and at a college bookstore. Then I got offered a position as a gardener at the Baha’i World Centre in Israel (I had fallen in love with the Baha’i Faith in college). While I was there, I was honestly happier than I ever was in college. I explored places I had barely even dreamed about, and meet new friends (many of whom I’m still in touch with) from around the world. I worked hard underneath the Sun, with sweat constantly pouring down my body, but I was doing work I was proud of. I honestly felt like I gained a lot more from living in Israel than I did from actually going to college. What was supposed to be just a yearlong journey ended up turning into nearly two exhilarating years.

I eventually returned to the States. I ended up moving to the state of Washington, where my now divorced mother was living with her then-boyfriend and my sister. Despite my best efforts I had had trouble finding a new job while living abroad.

When I moved to Washington I put most of my focus career-wise on becoming a flight attendant. Occasionally I would look at jobs in television or radio, and even thought of just making an indie movie, but that wasn’t my ultimate focus. Also looked at a few other career possibilities. In order to make both money and gain customer service experience I first got a job at McDonald’s. Later on I got a job at Home Depot, which I much preferred. There were many things I liked about Home Depot, not least of which were the people I got to know (and the occasional BBQs on days like Fourth of July and Labor Day). But it wasn’t where I wanted to be for the rest of my life.

After a few years of trial and error, I finally got a job at an airline as a ground service agent. I left my job at Home Depot and began training. Much to my chagrin I was fired barely a month into my new job. This was thanks to a new policy at the company. They had started a new contract involving moving mail for the U.S. Postal Service on their airplanes. Unfortunately the ground service agents had to have lived in the United States for five years straight to legally handle the mail, and thus I was let go (along with several other ground service agents that had been with the company longer).

Maybe I could have gone back to Home Depot, but I wanted to move on to something else. I looked at other jobs and career fields. I went to several interviews, trying to find the right fit (or at least something to keep my interest until I found a much better job). During the holiday season I worked a couple of different seasonal jobs to make some money. Eventually I would get a job selling luggage, which I would ultimately do for just over two years. But before that I seriously looked into a brand new field, coding.

As you may know, Seattle and the surrounding cities of Bellevue and Redmond are Meccas for the tech world. And people who truly know how to code can make a ton of money. There have been many success stories of people who went from low-paying jobs to high-paying tech careers, thanks to the fact that they learned to code, whether by themselves or thanks to a coding boot camp.

Learning to code and working for someplace like Microsoft began to sound like very attractive ideas to me. It seemed like people who knew how to code were the closest things to royalty that the greater Seattle area had. I could go from being fired from an airline to making a six-figure salary in barely any time at all. I could buy a nice house and a car, among other things like frequent international trips. Not to mention all of the prestige that the job would come with. It would be a real-life underdog story for me.

I applied to a coding boot camp. When I told my Mom about it she was kind of concerned. She didn’t want me to spend my savings on it, and didn’t think I was a tech person. This honestly kind of baffled me. When she was engaged to her then-boyfriend, no matter what craziness he did, she would always say, “He’s a good provider.” In fact when I first moved to the state of Washington at the age of twenty-five she kind of looked at me and said, “You know when he was your age he bought his first house.” Her boyfriend had a high-paying job selling business loans, and money was truly no object for him (one complaint my Mom did have about him was how he would spend his hard-earned money, like purchasing phone chargers over and over again that he would inevitably lose). And here I was, trying to become someone who could also be a great provider. I imagined getting married to a wonderful, beautiful woman, and being able to provide well for any future kids. Also my sister had quit college (partially due to lack of funds) and I thought, “I could help pay for her to finish her degree. I could also provide for my other sister to go to college. I would be a true hero.” I kept thinking, “Maybe this is destiny. Maybe me losing my airline job is actually a blessing in disguise.”

The coding boot camp also offered a one-day intro to coding class, which I took to be absolutely sure that this was the right move for me. Turned out that it was true, coding wasn’t meant for me. I kept getting lost in all of the numbers, despite being told that coding didn’t take the greatest math skills. Despite being accepted into the same boot camp, I ultimately declined.

When I told my Mom’s former fiancé that I had decided against that career move, he responded enthusiastically with, “That’s great!” Maybe I’m being oversensitive, but I would have liked a different response like, “Don’t worry, I know you’ll find your way,” or something along that line. Shortly afterwards I went to a group interview with Amazon, working in one of their warehouses. He asked me about the potential job and when I said it looked just like what I had done at Home Depot, he said, “That’s great!”

I wondered if he thought I was capable of doing any other type of job. During the first couple of years or so that I was living in the state of Washington, I wrote, illustrated, and self-published a children’s book titled “Mele the Mermaid” (under the name J.A. Cecil). I don’t remember him ever really congratulating on that. However, when I cooked something in the microwave he would go, “Good job!” with the same amount of enthusiasm as a father finding out his son or daughter got into Harvard.

Eventually I found my way to working as a sales associate at a luggage store. I really didn’t want to work at an Amazon warehouse; to be clear I’m not saying that I’m above working at one, but based on their reputation and the way they treat their employees, I wanted to avoid it if I could find a different job. Working as a sales associate kept my interest, and I got to meet people who travelled throughout the world, whether for business or pleasure. I also learned how to sell luggage and was able to sweet talk people in purchasing very expensive luggage.

Still, I kept looking for new possibilities. I wanted to keep exploring different places, whether as a flight attendant or in some other position. Also there was a part of me that thought that my time in the state of Washington was coming to a close. I remember shortly after telling a few friends of mine that I had decided against learning to code, they all looked at me in disbelief; I might as well have said, “Oh hey by the way I’m from Mars.” Also I remember talking to my Mom’s former boyfriend shortly after coming back from Israel and saying, “You know I kind of miss Israel.” And he kind of looked at me and said, “You know you really need to settle down, put down some roots.” Between all of the rejections from trying to become a flight attendant (or working anywhere in the airline industry) to the cold of Seattle in the winter, to how expensive the region has become, to the fact that I just didn’t fit in with the people who loved coding, I felt the need to get out.

About a year or so before moving to China, I tried to get a job with the airlines a few more times, and also looked into moving out of the state of Washington (I was thinking of moving to California, which while expensive, was a lot warmer). Partially inspired by an old friend of mine from Florida named Mikyba who had been teaching in South Korea for a few years, I ultimately decided to earn my TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) certificate. Initially I had hesitated doing this; I wasn’t sure if I’d be right for the job of teaching children, wasn’t sure if this would be a good career for me or a stable one. But while earning my certificate I became fascinated by the field, and after just a couple of interviews I got my current job.

I don’t think eight-year-old me, or even twenty-eight-year-old me, could have imagined my current reality. But I honestly feel that I am finally doing what I’m supposed to be doing at this moment, and I’ll probably be teaching English abroad for a while, whether in China or another country. Oftentimes I find myself looking through Facebook and seeing friends my own age leading remarkably different lives, some getting married, some with kids (sometimes right out of high school), and usually with completely different jobs and careers. But right now, I feel I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.