Monday, October 8, 2007

Unemployed No More

After a month long stint of being unemployed, the lack of money, permanent home, and near limitless amounts of free time has come to an end. So, you may be wondering, what does an employed college grad take for his first job? Starbucks, Barnes and Nobles, office work? No, one takes a job in China.
Where else but China could a 23 year old become a university professor. As opposed to the ire some leech on society that preceded my life in China, I am now viewed as the gatekeeper to English, the key to that mystical Disney World known as the United States. I am an expert not only on English, but also such important matters as basketball (no, I don't know how the Rockets are doing, stop asking), music (no, I don't know who the fuck The Batteries are), and the differences between the United States and Canada (one is cold, one isn't; one uses metric, one doesn't).
These many benefits do have their disadvantages though. If one ever doubted the need to reduce pollution, come to China and see why. Everything, even the trees, are coated in soot. The air gives you headaches. Even after treating the tap water with chlorine to kill the bacteria from the raw sewage, it is still loaded with toxic levels of chemicals. The architects must have all studied in the Soviet Union, and as such everything looks like it could be the headquarters of an evil organization. Someone from the government is reading this blog and everyone speaks Chinese.
But these are the prices that one must pay apparently to be a professor without actually going to school to be one in the U.S.