So the time is coming up soon for school break and end of term and the management of my school is starting to ask if the various foreign teachers intend to return for another year. It is almost unheard of for people to ever get fired in this school, and the management would really prefer if we stick around, especially now since there are a greatly diminished number of eligible replacement teachers in the country if we decide to leave.
But now I am faced with something I have been discussing online and in forums for quite some time in relation to my life in Thailand. Do I finally leave or do I stay for another year?
This is a decision that weighs very heavily on my mind and in the past I have urged people that it is important to not stick around in this country too long lest you kind of ruin the chance you have in life to build a real career in another country. I do NOT consider teaching English in Thailand to be a career and think it is a fool's venture to think otherwise. I don't know all the teachers here but I do know that most of the ones I talk to live paycheck to paycheck, have little to no savings, and are not getting any sort of pension or retirement plan from their schools.
For the most part, I feel as though someone in the early stages of their life is actually throwing their future away if they decide to stay here too long.
I've been here for 3.5 years and for 3 of those years I have been a teacher just to have something to do. I probably would have left a while ago but the dreaded Covid shook up the world and leaving at one point wasn't even an option. I also wasn't very interested in rejoining USA society and looking for a job in an environment where there are mask restriction and social distancing. It seemed counter productive to getting a job actually, and since I don't have much in the way of experience I would probably need to interview a bit and I didn't feel like doing this over Skype.
I love Thailand and really wish there was a way that I could make a real living here, but i just don't see that as a possibility for most people, especially people who are just teaching like I do. I am not a teacher, I never studied to be a teacher. My degree from my college is not at all related to teaching, just like most of the teachers I know here.
On the other side of the equation it appears as though most of the United States is still in a bit of turmoil about how they want to handle Covid. It seems as though things are easing up a bit, but for the most part it seems as though a lot of places, including my home state, are still enforcing masks and testing and even vaccine proof. I am really not interested in participating in any of that so this kind of makes me feel like it might not be a terrible idea for me to at least consider staying here for one more year.
In an interview I could always just tell the person that I stayed here for as long as I did for Covid reasons, not because I was avoiding a career. I don't really have any idea if potential employers look at "teaching English in Thailand" as something worth admiring on your resume. I can't imagine that they do and most people have an rather untrue opinion about this country being a place where people only visit it for prostitutes.
So what would you do if you were in my situation? I have to make a choice in the next month about if I am going to renew my contract or not and if I don't renew it, I will no longer have a work permit and this will mean that I will only get another 30 days or so to be in the country. At that point I will be forced to leave.
I know that i am only delaying the inevitable by not leaving but I also am not really excited about rejoining USA society if people are still going to be all mental about Covid.