The International Schools Review Forum

Congratulations! Which city?

1. Had no bug issues in 7 years in SE Asia apart from some occasional annoying mosquitoes. I did once see a banana-sized cockroach in Cambodia, but it was easy to eliminate.

2. Tropical weather, most people either love it or hate it. I miss it a lot. You can adjust to it over time. Nothing like a G&T on your balcony on a warm night.

3. The rainy season is the best time of the year. Fewer tourists, fresher air, greener landscapes. Lots of hotels drop prices by almost half and you never have to make any bookings when traveling locally around this time.

4. I know of a few expats who had dengue and it sounds pretty rough, but it's not common to get it. Never heard of anyone getting malaria. No drugs needed. There are citronella-based repellents available locally and that's all you will need, but I rarely needed that.

If you happen to be going to Chiang Mai (same latitude as Hanoi?) watch out for the air quality there, it can get really bad for several months of the year due to slash & burn farming.

If is is Luang Prabang - wow! Beautiful city and country.

So happy you guys landed something you're excited about :) Best wishes.

Congrats! Now you can breath and dream of two whole years of NO snow.
Not sure if this tip will work in SE Asia but tea tree oil products were my friend in Belize's jungles. Only thing that seemed to work.

Congratulations, MizMorton! I'm sure it will have been worth the wait and all the anxiety.

No, Sweetie, the hard part IS behind you. I think the hardest part of IT is the time and stress in getting a good job. Now you can sit back and enjoy the ride. All the schools I've worked for have had awesome orientations, from arranging all the visas and shipping help to greeting us at the airport and getting us settled in.

SE Asia is amazing.

@mizmorton

Congratulations, a few issues you may wish to consider.

1) Dont stop looking, ISs change their minds, and unfortunate events do happen. If you secured your contract though a premium agency keep looking at schools outside the agency, a safety or backup offer could be a life saver, or even lead to the dream opportunity (or closer to it).

2) Its never too early to be thinking of the future. Just because you have an appointment doesnt mean you can put aside your professional growth and development. Whatever you were thinking of doing to make yourself more marketable for next year, keep pursuing that.
Its also in your interests to keep yourself out there if you were with one premium agency, approach/apply with the other premium agency. At the very least it will give you resources to and insight into how the IE market is developing over time, and it provides you plenty of contact points for networking. Ie. ASIJ is having a record number of vacancies not for this upcoming year (15/16) but for (16/17), elite tier schools do start recruiting earlier than the conventional 11 year recruiting cycle.

3) As part of your planing you really need to come up with an exit/escape plan. What your going to do if the job/appointment fails for some reason. The school could withdraw/rescind the contract for financial or enrollment or ownership/management reasons. You could arrive at your new IS and find that admin/management grossly misrepresented themselves, and you need to pull a runner. You could have an unexpected medical, family, personal emergency or crises that requires you to withdraw your acceptance.

4) Dont change your personal psychology. It can be very exciting traveling on this new journey in your lives and career, what you want to do is minimize the "drop" from the enchantment stage of culture shock. Thats the second biggest cause for unsuccessful obligation fulfillment. Managing and maintaining realistic levels of expectations will minimize the "crash" when the the enchantment "high" transitions into frustration. Thats when people are most likely to give up, minimizing that crash is critical to successfully negotiating that stage of culture shock.

5) Organization. Start making a planer of the things you have to do and within what time frame you need to do them.

wntriscoming wrote:
> No, Sweetie, the hard part IS behind you. I think the hardest part of IT
> is the time and stress in getting a good job. Now you can sit back and
> enjoy the ride. All the schools I've worked for have had awesome
> orientations, from arranging all the visas and shipping help to greeting us
> at the airport and getting us settled in.
>
> SE Asia is amazing.

Thank you. Wow, that is very kind. I am going to come back and read that post several times a day. And the stress of job-hunting, particularly the long months with no word at all, was horrendous. It actually affected me physically.

PsyGuy, thank you for your good advice too!

Congratulations and welcome to the most amazing place in the world

Good for you!!!!! Whew!!!

Congrats on the position.

We've all been in this situation and it's such a relief when you finally get a job.

SE Asia is meant to be a fantastic place to live. Many people who I have talked too love working there.

If your new to international teaching, then this might be helpful. If you've been to another country before, then just ignore as you'll know what I'm talking about.

When you first move to your country, of course you'll be excited. Just don't be scared to ask for help or ask general questions. It's also very common to get those 3 month cold feet wondering why you made this decision. This is really common and it's just the normal time when all of the excitement has worn off. As always - this goes away with time as you start to develop a routine.

But I will say - most peoples routines in SE Asia are quite envious to the rest of the world. It has great food, plus you often live in fantastic housing and get cheap home help....