My work destroyed my life. I have never felt as suicidal as I'm feeling today.

[mesmerized]

Everything you mention you say you failed at. Anything less than "yay, you contacted us, come right in - here's your job" is failure to you.

 

It wasn't fair to count the professor's response as rejection. You did not tell the professor that you wanted OUT of China.

 

What about going back to your hometown? Contact a place like the equivalent of the Learning Annex or adult enrichment or community enrichment and pitch the idea of teaching Chinese to English speakers or French speakers (if French is your first language - I assumed it was English.) There are plenty of people who would take it out of curiosity, take it because their spouse is in international business or in the military and they will be moving to China or want to get into an industry that would take them to China. Some people just want to always learn. It could be just classes in conversational Chinese - what you need to get around. Maybe you'd have another one-shot class for people who want to learn about the culture and read a Chinese menu. And then maybe something a little more advanced. Maybe you are not fluent enough to teach advanced medical tersm to native Chinese speakers, but can teach enough for someone who doesn't know anything.

 

If you taught a couple classes, you could do tutoring on the side, too, and maybe get a part time job to fill in until you figured out what direction you wanted to take. And when you are back on native soil, more people are likely to hire you because you are right there and they can interview you in person'

 

I know of someone who works as an interpreted (not chinese, a different language), and businesses call them when they have a customer or patient come or client in who speaks that language and is too traumatized to get the English (their newly learned language) out, or maybe its the family member who is visiting and only speaks enough to find a taxi, etc.

 

Anyway, that is something you could do until you figured out what you wanted to do.

 

What about a teaching position near your parents? Until you figure it out? When you apply for things that you have little chance of getting (in other countries you don't have a VISA or green card for), then it seems like in some ways you are only in your comfort zone when you are failing and don't really truly want to succeed and not have anything to complain about.

 

No one is going to swoop down and fix things. You have to do it.

 

And no, unless you are fresh out of school and 17-19 years old, few people are going to give you a scholarship. So if you want to go back to school, its on your dime.

 

You probably haven't really read this thread carefully because if you did you'd know how I feel about teaching. Thanks for your post anyways.

 

- no, in my homeland there are no teaching positions similar to the one I had here; what I teach is not in the curriculums in my country, and besides... if I returned to my homeland now and sought a teaching position there, none of my experience would matter and I'd be starting as a fresh graduate so I'd have to take internships in schools = I wouldn't be able to live on my own at all, and at the age of 31 I AM NOT GOING BACK to my parents... I'd rather drown myself.

 

- there is no way out of this... you are talking about me being in my comfort zone... about me not wanting to succeed... and how exactly am I supposed to succeed if I'm not employable? or if I can't move out of this country? NOBODY wanted to offer me even an interview, nobody even replied to my applcations from other fields... how about that for a comfort zone?

[Kate221]

You probably haven't really read this thread carefully because if you did you'd know how I feel about teaching. Thanks for your post anyways.

 

- no, in my homeland there are no teaching positions similar to the one I had here; what I teach is not in the curriculums in my country, and besides... if I returned to my homeland now and sought a teaching position there, none of my experience would matter and I'd be starting as a fresh graduate so I'd have to take internships in schools = I wouldn't be able to live on my own at all, and at the age of 31 I AM NOT GOING BACK to my parents... I'd rather drown myself.

 

- there is no way out of this... you are talking about me being in my comfort zone... about me not wanting to succeed... and how exactly am I supposed to succeed if I'm not employable? or if I can't move out of this country? NOBODY wanted to offer me even an interview, nobody even replied to my applcations from other fields... how about that for a comfort zone?

 

Hi,

 

I have to admit I havent read through this entire thread so sorry if my advice has already been said or is unhelpful.

 

Can you not move to England? I am from England and currently attend university here. I have many friends who are international students and the support they recieve is really good. There are so many courses you could choose from and start over? 30 is not old at all. We have people on our course who are 40+.

 

I dont know if moving to the UK is an option for you and I'm sorry if this is post is pointless. I just know they help international students with finances and accomodation etc. If you already have a degree they would be very interested in accepting you.

 

You clearly desperately unhappy and I know what that feels like. You need to make a positive change as soon as you can.

 

There is no shame in hating what you did for your degree at university. It is so common.

[sleepingdonut]

I have no doubt your circumstances suck, but attitude is everything. You're the only one who can find a way to change your attitude about your situation. No one here can do that for you, and we're powerless to help you beyond it. Which is probably why you'll notice responses drop off over time, because people start to realize nothing they say is going to do anything for you.

 

I recommend reading The Count of Monte Cristo if you haven't already. Just a story, but a good one, and a great example of what one can accomplish with their time, even when their circumstances are terrible.

[tiredofvampires]

Not to mention the fact that I absolutely hate teaching. So here I am - unemployable in any other field and stuck with a profession that I hate.

 

Actually, I do recall you saying you love teaching. It's earlier in the thread, and I did a bit of a search for that post, but as you know, this is a long thread so it would take more time to excavate it.

 

You said you love teaching. You love the fields you studied. You just hate teaching at this particular place and school the the environment. But you said you love teaching. A lot of the conversation on here was built around that, as in, tutoring and doing related skills while you earn a wage somewhere doing something unrelated.

 

I think it was on this thread that I posted a video of a young boy, a teenager, who had a rare illness where over time, instead of growing up, he grows old and dies a very premature death (like the case of Benjamin Button, reversing in time). He was doing a TedTalk that I put here, as a high school junior -- telling the audience what his philosophy of life was. Despite not being able to physically do many things other kids did, he adapted devices so he could play drums in the school band, a dream of his; despite looking like what many would call a "freak", he had tons of friends and was going to the prom. He could have been considered "crippled" by any standard, but he said he didn't want to let this disease rob him of showing up for life, even though he had bad days. He died shortly after that film was made, even though he had said he had plans to go into genetics or neuroscience or some biology field, presuming he lived that long. He didn't stop dreaming and he didn't stop finding ways to work with his "givens" to make improvements in his quality of life.

 

You said that other people's bad situations don't help you with yours. I need to rebut this, at the risk of repeating anything I might have said before.

 

Generally speaking, saying "so and so has it even worse" is not how I like to operate, but in your case, I think there's some very big thing you're missing, and people have posted about this in a 1000 different ways, but it seems to be lost on you.

 

Your own sense of agency is really THE problem you face, in terms of getting anything better. I'm not saying you don't have real practical, financial, etc. problems. But I could point to any number of people who have all of those and worse, and they didn't lie down and die -- they decided that they would do everything and anything, even circuitous routes, to make their lives better, step by step.

 

So I ask you -- if someone can be raised in an oppressive country, or in poverty, wind up being maimed or tortured or raped, or come from a severely abusive home and a life of crime, or have all their life savings destroyed by a series of financial crises, or lose all their family members in a natural disaster or have them all shot in front of their face -- and such a person can find a way to another country, get into school, and wind up with a business or as a scholar, or international speaker despite what should have killed them, what makes them different from you, in your opinion?

 

How is your life more broken and impossible than any one of these examples, which could go on for pages? People survive atrocities, rise above abject poverty in third world countries, find meaning after having colossal personal tragedy and loss of an order of magnitude that is unfathomable. And the human spirit has shown itself to prevail in many such instances through will to survive, having a mission that is not lost sight of, and being willing to eat crap for a long time and make many sacrifices until the tree was bearing any fruit.

 

Again, this is not to diminish your suffering. It's more to present you with this question: do you really think your life is uniquely hopeless? When many people with equal or worse challenges have pulled themselves out of the darkest trenches, what is it about your life that you feel is objectively more insolvable?

 

What do you think they had as advantages that you do not?

 

And please don't say, "They didn't live in China." Cuz a lot of them did. (And left).

[tiredofvampires]

As for this --

 

Sorry Tired, but I honeslty don't see how this is supposed to make me happier. Getting a work permit to work in the US is practically impossible in this day and age...

 

FIND A JOB FIRST.

 

LOOK FOR POSITIONS RELATED TO TEACHING ANYTHING IN THE US, EVEN IF IT'S HOW TO MAKE PERFECT COOKIE DOUGH, PARTICULARLY TO FOREIGNERS, IN PUBLIC, PRIVATE, OR NON-PROFIT INSTITUTIONS (NOT LIMITED TO ELITE "ACADEMIA"), APPLY, SUBMIT RESUME, AND INTERVIEW. RINSE AND REPEAT, RINSE AND REPEAT. YOUR WORK IS CUT OUT FOR YOU THERE, WITH THE POSSIBILITIES. That should keep you busy for at least a few months.

[abitbroken]

No one is "entitled" to come to the USA. You have choices.

 

If your primary goal is getting out of China, and that is priority #1, then you will go back to your home country by any means even if it means waiting tables for awhile.

 

If your primary goal is not to teach anymore, then figure out what makes you happy and what ever credentials you need to start a new career in China or elsewhere. But in other careers, you will compete against people who are already in the career.

 

I doubt if your teaching experience is worthless completely if you have a degree. You may have to start lowest on the totem pole in seniority. But you can teach. You completely discounted my ideas about starting your OWN classes or contacting the adult enrichment programs and offering to teach Chinese, etc.

 

I was not employable - so I started my own business. I came with no job from another state to start over after a divorce. My ex made sure no one would hire me in the area in my field. I didn't have the degree to really be working in the old job that I had. So I made my own. You can make your own. You can find any random job waiting tables or what not as your side job and then you figure out what interesting thing you can offer people. Are people in your home country wanting to travel to China but are a little apprehensive because of language and uncertainty - you could employ yourself as a tour guide. You could teach Chinese to curious people. You could put a packet together and contact local attorneys and hospitals and offer your services as a translator. You could do all this while you figured out what you REALLY want to do ultimately if you don't want to do that.

 

I think the biggest roadblock is yourself. There are things that you can do. Sorry, but you may have to move in with your parents for a short time before you find a place. I moved back in with my folks for two years because I had no place to go, and when I left I was in a good place.

[tiredofvampires]

^Lots of great suggestions there, OP. And lots of ideas you've shot down on this thread or didn't bother responding to.

 

All great inventors have said that they made a ton of mistakes before they got it right, but what they had going for them was trying to figure out a different way to solve the problem.

 

You, by contrast, refuse to try to see other ways of solving the problem. You really have one choice way to go about it, and if you can't do it THAT WAY, you'll do it no way. That's not a problem of the situation so much as a mental block against creative problem-solving and a will to think outside of the prefabricated box you've made for yourself which is, "how I'd ideally want my solution to look".

 

No one gets anywhere when faced with an obstacle by refusing to dump the plan and go back to the drawing board to really radicalize a new approach.

[Man with Dog]

What happened to your girlfriend? I guess you've dumped her by now.

 

Now I may well annoy some of the people here but I'm going to be honest:

 

NOT everybody who is faced by adversity rises above it. One of my relatives committed suicide a few years ago. He had lost his house and he and his family were about to be evicted from a rented property. Nobody, not even his wife and kids knew that anything was wrong. I hadn't heard from him for a couple of weeks when I usually received a message twice a week. I thought he was busy or they were on holiday.

 

One of my other relatives is somewhat older than you, in her 40s. She lives with her mum and stepdad. She doesn't want to but cannot get a job that pays enough to live alone. She has a string of failed relationships.

 

I get that career failure and the indignity of having to move back in with relatives when an adult is hard to take. So are failed relationships and cataclysmic financial disasters like losing a house.

 

I just feel that too many people in the world are having to face this on their own.

[tiredofvampires]

I just feel that too many people in the world are having to face this on their own.

 

That's why we have ENA.

 

It's true, not everyone rises above adversity. But this thread is about helping the OP not to join their ranks. This thread is a sign of his struggle to persevere, and I'm glad he's still here, working not to succumb to his worst urges.

 

He can be one of the ones who makes it.

[mesmerized]

If your primary goal is not to teach anymore, then figure out what makes you happy and what ever credentials you need to start a new career in China or elsewhere. But in other careers, you will compete against people who are already in the career.

 

Precisely. I have tried so many times to get ANYTHING but teaching and failed. How am I supposed to get any kind of other experience if no one wants to offer me a chance? I'm 31 and have a pressing need to change my career. I know I don't want to teach and if I'd have to teach for another 30 years of my life and feel as pointless as I do about my work then I'd rather give up already.

 

 

 

What happened to your girlfriend? I guess you've dumped her by now.

 

Now I may well annoy some of the people here but I'm going to be honest:

 

NOT everybody who is faced by adversity rises above it. One of my relatives committed suicide a few years ago. He had lost his house and he and his family were about to be evicted from a rented property. Nobody, not even his wife and kids knew that anything was wrong. I hadn't heard from him for a couple of weeks when I usually received a message twice a week. I thought he was busy or they were on holiday.

 

One of my other relatives is somewhat older than you, in her 40s. She lives with her mum and stepdad. She doesn't want to but cannot get a job that pays enough to live alone. She has a string of failed relationships.

 

I get that career failure and the indignity of having to move back in with relatives when an adult is hard to take. So are failed relationships and cataclysmic financial disasters like losing a house.

 

I just feel that too many people in the world are having to face this on their own.

 

I never dumped her... I don't like to say that... We simply went different ways. She left for Canada to get an MA, I stayed here. Besides, it wasn't a relationship based on love.

 

And yes, you're absolutely right. I would never move back with my parents. I already feel like a failure of a guy without any skills. I'd rather swallow a whole pharmacy than face going back. Call me what you want but there's no way I could take that.

 

I think that at the very core of the problem lies the fact that I feel that everything seems to be pointless. Every single day is without purpose or any meaning. The more I think of it... the more I come to three conclusions:

 

- I have never felt love and this stage of life I've almost lost any hope this will every change 'cause I haven't formed any meaningful relations with anyone since my early twenties.

- I'm unemployable because my skillset is useless and I'd be unable to compete with anyone younger than me.

- For more than 7 or 8 years I haven't felt that my life's had any meaning.

 

If that's not a failure, then what is.

 

Thank you all for your posts.

[Liefde]

Do a online search! " What can I do other than teaching"

 

 

[Man with Dog]

I never dumped her... I don't like to say that... We simply went different ways. She left for Canada to get an MA, I stayed here. Besides, it wasn't a relationship based on love.

 

It sounds like the whole break was mutual. In your earlier posts it didn't sound much like love. At least you don't have to consider her in any future decision you might make.

 

Not for everyone but is it possible to become self-employed or start a small business.

 

On moving back home, I would ask my mum if she could build a cellar for me to hide in, so she'd be the only one who knew I was there.

[Liefde]

Alternatives to teaching companies that hire those with an education background or degree.

 

 

 

Panasonic

 

 

 

 

k12

 

 

 

 

[abitbroken]

The problem is that you want to be given a chance, but it has to be win win. They want something tangible. They are not going to hire you for a high level position. You are going to have to start at the bottom and/or get the skills they are looking for. OR you have to know somebody.

 

I already told you what I would do - I would save up money -several months expenses, then move back with your folks for - let's say 6 months so you can look around for a place to live. I get that you don't want to live with your folks but its awful hard to apartment hunt from thousands of miles away. Or find another relative or friend. And then start putting your feelers out there. find how you can teach Chinese or tutor in subjects you are qualified to tutor in until you figure it out if moving back to your home country is important to you. And wait tables or something to fill in the gaps until you found something.

 

Its not "failure" if moving back home temporarily is part of a plan. My parents moved in with my grandparents for 4 months. Their house sold more quickly than anticipated and their new house wasn't ready yet - the previous owners could not move until school finished up for the year. It was not a failure. It was part of a plan.

 

Also, you need to knock the chip off your shoulder and try to make new friends who are ex-pats. You never know who knows someone who works where.