Notes from the TEFL Graveyard

Wistful reflections, petty glories.

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Location: The House of Usher, Brazil

I'm a flailing TEFL teacher who entered the profession over a decade ago to kill some time whilst I tried to find out what I really wanted to do. I like trying to write comedy (I once got to the semi-finals of a BBC Talent competition, ironically writing a sitcom based on TEFL), whilst trying to conquer genetically inherited procrastination... I am now based in Brazil, where I live with my wife and two chins.

Sunday 19 December 2010

GORDON'S ALIVE...

Keen-eyed readers who popped by in around June may remember a garbled message I posted (and swiftly deleted) relating to some fairly major legal difficulties I was facing, which, thankfully, turned out to be utterly baseless.

Without wishing to go into the morbid details, suffice it to say that our attempts to adopt a young waif led to a rumour circulating in the region that there was a German child trafficker at large - and I'm still not sure which part of that double insult riled me more. I am delighted to say I have been fully cleared of all suspicions, with my moral integrity and island heritage more or less intact. What it has provided me with is yet another demonstration of the depth of the other-planetary madness by which this country operates, where criminals (and clowns, in the literal sense of the word) are routinely elected to public office, and people hoping to adopt an abandoned child are criminalised. And people wonder why Brazil's attempts to secure a permanent seat on the UN Security Council have come to naught as the battled-hardened troops fresh from peacekeeping in Haiti rumble into the Morro do Alemão in Rio, the drug traffickers having already left via the sewage system.

So, I'm gingerly dipping my toes back into the blogalaxy, fresh from a bout of chickenpox that has left my rugged features slightly more bullet-ridden and interesting.

More soon...

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8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yay! Well done you for not getting screwed!

Ex-pats who think they have 'gone native' and who shirk other ex-pats or who want you to know that they know the host country better than other ex-pats are a pain in the arse, as are ex-pats who are still too tied to the homeland. The ones in the middle can be great, though, and much nicer than if you'd met them in the homeland.

engelsk

21 December 2010 at 03:33  
Blogger Ms Scarlet said...

You're back!!
This is a complicated question as I don't know any ex-pats. But I have moved from the south-east to the south west and have embraced all things rural... supping milk straight from the cow and that sort of thing... so I suppose I would be an ex-pat bore.
Sx

21 December 2010 at 09:33  
Blogger M C Ward said...

Thanks Eng. I fully agree with your neat summary of ex-patitude.

Scarlet, nice to see you again. I presume you mean you decant the milk before drinking it "straight from the cow", otherwise you may well be spurned by the local community and/or arrested :)

22 December 2010 at 14:10  
Blogger Gadjo Dilo said...

Blimey, Wardo, mistaken for a Gerry, eh? Well done on getting that legal stuff sorted - and on the highly commendable reason for it all. Have a great 2011.

30 December 2010 at 03:21  
Blogger M C Ward said...

Thanks Gadj - hope you have a good one too. How's the new job going (probably not at all new now - I haven't been out much).

And being confused with the Hun certainly was a dastardly business.

11 January 2011 at 23:13  
Blogger Well-lighted Shadows said...

glad to have you back, I was in your neck of the woods, Sao Paolo, just last week

12 January 2011 at 20:20  
Blogger M C Ward said...

Nice to hear from you, Spesh. What were you doing in SP? Business or pleasure? You picked a time of torrential rains, but I guess you're kind of used to that ;) If you look even vaguely German, be extra vigilant...

13 January 2011 at 12:27  
Blogger Well-lighted Shadows said...

Actually I was there visiting a lady friend. Well I look like the typical Alemao tall, fairish with glasses. I had no probs though, even though I was staying in the centre and walked from Augusta through Crakolandia at night. Mind you I was really keeping an eye out. Liked SP but doenst have the green spaces of BA.
all the best mate, write us smth!

14 January 2011 at 21:24  

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