[Moon-dæg] Five Reasons Freelance Writers Aren't in It for the Money

T-A-X-E-S

But I'll get to that below.

Introduction
Potential Incomes
Taxes
Conclusion

{Is the hand giving or taking? Image from "Freelance Writing - Career and Scopes" on ezdia.com}

Introduction

Freelance writing. Perhaps this is an inevitable topic for any "unemployed" writer with dreams of literary grandeur. 'Unemployed' is in double quotes since it doesn't really apply to freelancers in quite the same way as it might to a person who formerly worked for a company as a press release writer, or ad writer but now needs to find work.

There are a number of online job sites and boards that cost a freelancer some money (as a union might), either as deducted from pay or upfront, but working with these outlets can hardly be regarded as an employer-employee relationship. The writer who uses sites like Elance, oDesk, Constant Content, or Guru.com, doesn't generally get any benefit from working with them aside from increased visibility and a pleasant platform on which to deal with clients. But already this article's being diverted, let's just say that this whole paragraph a metaphor for YouTube in the day to day life of a freelancer and then close this tab.

Working for yourself isn't just about being able to control your output and ultimately being the only person to whom you answer. There's the matter of making enough to live on every year as well. In spite of its apparently small number of polled freelancers, the site payscale.com paints a hope-inspiring picture.

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Potential Incomes

According to this website, the average hourly wage for a Canadian Freelance Writer in Canada is between $9.90 and $64.11 (between $20 357 and $106 818 yearly). The site quotes the yearly earnings of Canadian Writers as $20 101 to $68 207; Writer/Authors as $11 745 to $84 971; and Freelance Writers, Technical as $32 580 to $141 015. All of these are fine and comparable professions since they're all dealing in fairly general writing.

Compared with Freelance Writer, however, the ranges - except for the specialized "Freelance Writers, Technical" - make going your own way with your writing look pretty promising.

However, the money you earn is not entirely what you keep. If you get a cavity you'll need to see a dentist, if you fracture a bone or damage a nerve (carpel tunnel becomes a serious job-threatening injury as a writer of any stripe), then you'll need to see a doctor. And of course, as spring overcomes winter each year, so to you need to file your taxes.

So, at the end of a good year, according to payscale.com, you could expect about $63 000. Tempered by the more sobering data offered by Sarah Turner, namely that only 8% of Canadian writers earn $25 000 or more a year, let's move that $63 000 to $30 000. That's still a relatively high number, but what would you owe in taxes on that sort of income as a freelance writer?

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Taxes

There are certainly a lot of different factors involved in tax calculation as it is. But, however individual a tax return may be, as someone selling services, you may have to charge your clients sales tax for your writing.

In fact, with 30 000 a year you need to charge GST/HST. You should keep clear records of your expenses since they could be written off if you can connect them to your writing business (this includes things like books on writing, and part of your rent if you work from home). And you also need to be clear and honest about what you make, even if you run a deficit with your writing, since this could offset income from other sources (assuming you have some).

Much like the nature of freelance writing itself, figuring out its taxes is a very individual activity. However, to get a general sense of at least one aspect of the income tax you file as a writer, let's take a look at what sort of GST/HST remittance you would need to pay on your $30 000 if you had a registered GST/HST account.

Running with 2011's numbers for Ontario (8.8% remittance rate for business providing services in another "participating province"), you would need to remit 30 000 * 0.088 = $2 640 of your income to the government in sales tax. The Canadian Revenue Agency website on the Quick Method of Accounting for GST/HST offers more help on this matter, but is also quite dense.

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Conclusion

So, if you're considering starting up as a freelance writer and feel like you've got a realistic grasp on how much you could make in a year, you should definitely plug your numbers into the calculations outlined on the relevant Canadian Revenue Agency website (or find what you need on the main site).

You might also want to consider moving to one of the "non-participating" provinces or territories (PEI, Quebec, Nunavut, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, or Alberta) so that your remittance rate, at least, is considerably lower. Montreal does have a pretty vibrant arts scene.

How do you feel about how taxes work for freelancers, or in general? Let me know in a comment.

Check back here Wednesday for a lightly researched thought piece about Anglo Saxon burial finds, and don't miss Friday's review of Battlefield Earth - there's good in it somewhere, there's got to be!

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[Moon-dæg] Heading Downstream in a Kayak Called Teacher's College

Teacher's college does seem like the logical next step in a teaching career, but is that the career that I really want? Will teacher's college help me to become a professor at a college or a sessional at a university? It might - formal training in how to educate would be something useful and something grand to put on a resume.

But do I want to just chase resume gems until I get a good job that lets me settle in a city, sees me write some, and live on like that until the end? Or do I want to move on from all of that and actually become something more?

What's really at play here, keeping me down and keeping me back from wanting to go to Teacher's College? What fear is there? What despair? The fact that I'll be jobless for another year at least? The fact that I'll be unable to write as much as I do now? Writing and teaching definitely aren't incompatible, but do I have the gumption and the drive to do both?

I can cite a few examples of writers who started off (and continued) as teachers: Stephen King, J.K. Rowling (who taught EFL (a variety of ESL)), J.R.R. Tolkien, Nick Hornby, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce.

But can I count myself among them? Or am I more of a one-track doer?

Plus, if I'm splitting myself between writing and teaching for a living then what's different from the desired end of a PhD? That degree could get me a job teaching and researching, or, if I worked at an undergraduate institution, teaching with some time for writing. And what's different about working at a college? What makes teaching college desirable despite there being no real hard and fast difference between it and high school or university teaching in terms of time left for moonlighting as a writer?

Honestly, very little. Prestige mostly, something to hide behind while I secretly gain cred as a writer so that to a family of steel and service industry workers I can have something more concrete than writing to show. To identify myself with.

Aside from that, what's at the heart of the issue here? Why is deciding on teacher's college such a struggle for me? Why do I want to be a certified teacher?

Because my job prospects aren't good already? Because I've got no marketable skills? Neither of those are true.

An MA - even in English - is going to pull down some serious clout in the right circles and in the right job hunts.

I think the issue that I'm running into when I do slip into job hunt mode is that I'm living in Small Town Ontario, where people may have advanced degrees in things unrelated to their job (places like this seem ideal for the janitor who studied astrophysics), but where these degrees also mean precious little. After all, what really matters in small towns is connections, but since I've been out of town for the last seven years, I haven't much to go on in that regard.

The state of my connections is slowly changing, but more as a result of having been in town for a while rather than because of my on again, off again job hunt.

Nonetheless, I might need something to pick up the financial slack left by freelancing. Going to school in September or saving up to go overseas, or saving up just to move to a dream town where I have a job as a writer or journalist all takes money. And that's something in short supply right now.

Things are on an upswing though and if I work really hard, then I can probably raise enough by September to pay for a semester of teacher's college, or the full cost of going overseas (minus the wedding), or six months worth of living expenses.

Of course, I'm still waiting on acceptances from these teacher's colleges. And that's another thing.

A lot of the papers and columns keep declaring that teacher's colleges should ease up on training teachers that aren't in demand. My credentials lead me to believe that I'd be able to get a place in any of the institutions I applied to. But maybe I won't get into any since English and History are my teaching areas (and the two facing a large part of the oversupply).

But why teacher's college? Why does it matter? Why does it need to be the next step? Why not bang on as a temp college prof? Or go overseas again? The latter definitely seems like a sweet proposition. The biggest difficulty I'd expect to face would be having to readjust to the real Korea rather than the ideal image that my first trip left me with.

As per the former, I think that temping as a college prof would be great, but at 6000 a semester (assuming I'd be teaching two courses and each would pay 3000) and each semester being some four months long, writing on the side would help to cover my costs (by my estimates, 18,000 a year for a one bedroom apartment, utilities, groceries, and enough to treat myself every now and then). This could be a fine arrangement, but I'd need to get my writing off the ground first.

Ultimately, what makes me wary of teacher's college is the fact that there's no guarantee of immediate employment. As naive as it was, I thought that getting my MA would just draw jobs to me (or me to jobs) but such simply hasn't been the case. As my mom puts it, "I furthered my education" but I didn't really think much of the career that might stem from it aside from a professorship (Anglo-Saxonists, alas, are in small demand).

Going further back, majoring in English for my BA stemmed from success in English classes through Grade 12. Then graduate school stemmed from the idea in fourth year that becoming a prof would be good and easy and lead to a life of teaching with periodic bursts of research - the perfect cushion on which to sit and write my novels and poems.

But the MA shattered that myth and showed me the intensity of the research required of profs. This turned me off - not because I don't like research, but because I'd rather spend my extra time writing things that a large audience (or a large niche audience) could enjoy, rather than maybe another hundred, or thousand, or million people with specialized degrees of their own.

Genre fiction also seems like it has more reach and importance than essays on what happened to the Celts after the Angles and the Saxons settled old Britain's shores.

Anyway. I have the MA and no job. Yes. I should have been more pro-active with job fairs and such. Yes I should have had an attitude of, look for work where I am, moving back to Ontario is not inevitable. But I didn't. do I regret these moves to inaction? No.

Why? Because, in spite of the usual things one expects parents and relatives and people in the small town community to say to someone who's starting out as a writer (of all things), living at home gives me the financial freedom necessary to start write professionally and the training in working from home that any disciplined freelancer needs.

In spite of my writing, teachers college looms over me still because it's another described step on a way to success that's more familiar to my parents. Both got jobs that aren't necessarily related to what they trained for, but still they say. So really, I think that's the big reason why teacher's college is even an issue for me. It's what I'm supposed to do. 6 years of being told that, as an English major, what I'll be doing is teaching seems to have taken its toll.

But then we get into what I feel like I've been called to do. I remember the rush experience from my first good ESL class in South Korea. And I remember the rush I get every time I get paid for having written something. Are both the same? Is one more of a rush? One more positive?

Writing and teaching in essence are compatible, and in practice, too. But my feeling is almost as though I've had enough formal education for now, and that maybe I should just stick with freelancing, and take it from there. Work hard at it and see where things wind up.

And teacher's college? Well. We'll see about that next week. Acceptances might've arrived by then (via post or email) and I'll take another look at the question from a logical standpoint.

If you've got your own stories of struggling with compatible/conflicting choices, feel free to share them in the comments. Also, go ahead and follow my blog, I'll follow you back if you've got one!

And check back here Wednesday for my thoughts on a recent attention grabbing article and on Friday for my review of the Donnie Darko sequel S.Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale.

[Moon-dæg] Why Shouldn't the Twain Meet?

{Ontario's Premier Dalton McGuinty is also thinking about teachers college - doubling its length. Photo credited to Wikipedia.com.}

Teachers college. Should I go, or should I just duck out of it and take another route to get into teaching?

Today's entry is the second installment in my four part series all about that question.

Specifically, now that I've had a week to mull over the facts and the figures, it's time to take a more logical look at them, and at one of the options for my future.

Starting with the financial aspect of things, teachers college is a pretty sweet proposition. In the long term.

That's not a bad term for something to be good in, but it seems that all of the honey of this decision can only be enjoyed after I've endured the stings of the swarming bees of time.

As a person who would get certified to teach English and/or History at the Middle/High School level, I'd not be in great demand. And because I'd be one of the many extras bopping around in the teaching market in Ontario, I might not get something solid and sturdy until five years after graduation, until 2018. Until then I'd have to supply teach, work part time, or do something unrelated to pay back whatever loans I took out, or whatever my current cost of living would be.

Talk about an exercise in self-denial.

Nonetheless, once employed, if I could live on half of my salary ($40,000-$55,000) and spend the rest to pay off my debts, they'd be gone in 2-4 years. Of course, not knowing clearly just how much I'd need to borrow (banking mostly on awards, bursaries, and such might not be stable, but that's what paid for my MA) makes guessing how long I'll be indebted difficult, but I think that 2-4 years is still accurate.

The worst case scenario, then, would be that I'd be starting work in 2018, and be debt free in 2022 - a solid ten years from now. After that - despite having gotten married at some point within those ten years, and probably having had a kid - my salary (increases and all) would be nothing but gravy - matters of mortgage, any other loan repayment, and/or raising a child aside.

So financially, this is certainly a stable option. Wife, 2.5 kids, small dog, house in the suburbs type stuff.

Socially this is also a fair deal since my social life would change, but also remain similar.

I'd be likely to move out of South-Western Ontario, but I'd still be within the province, so get-togethers would continue to be doable, even if they were treks. And I'd be exposed to new environments and new people, so things would be energized in that way, even if I stuck with South Western Ontario. Not to mention, there'd also be my cohort from my teachers college program. New bonds formed, new learning had, and new ideas (hopefully) encountered.

This all sounds great.

This all sounds like Teaching ESL - though much more formalized. At least in the sense that I'd need to go to a school for a full year, and then I'd be able to stay in province (or country) and work.

As per my personal life, going to teachers college would delay wedding my fiancée for a year or two. At the same time, it could see me stepping out into the world once more, and not boomeranging back as I did before.

But with a wait time of up to five years, and part time/supply/unrelated work being what can be done while I wait for a full time teaching job, I also need to face up to the fact that it's possible that I would boomerang back. And Small Town Ontario cannot be mistaken for a city.

Even Twin Peaks, as long as it is a typo on the town's sign so that it should read 5,120, is smaller than my Small Town in Ontario.

And living in a place where the only way to go to other towns is by car, and you lack a car (though not a license) doesn't make it easy to co-ordinate interview times outside of a one hour radius. This limitation is problematic, since I'm aiming to settle in a place like Guelph or KW.

However, amidst all of these considerations and all of these different possibilities, I am forgetting one major thing.

After I have finished my stint at teachers college, I could go and teach overseas. That experience could fill in the five-year gap that stands between most new teachers college grads and full-time employment, could see me get some hands-on time teaching, could see me continue to encounter new people, places, and things, and it could see me make the money needed to pay back whatever loans I'd taken out in the process of going through teachers college.

Honestly, that could work. I could go to teachers college. Take on whatever debt I had to take on, then go off to Asia the next year. I could probably get myself debt free in three years or less, and I'd be able to start that in earnest right after graduation. So I could be completely free of most financial worry by 2016, only four years from now.

Getting married somewhere in between teachers college and going overseas would also work, since paying back that debt would merely increase my and my fiancée's stay overseas. Hardly a high price to pay.

Yet. Being across the ocean would make it even more difficult to interview for teaching jobs in Ontario (at least if they insist on in-person interviews) than moving back to my home town.

Nonetheless, going to teachers college could work as a combined opportunity. The extra teacher training would give me an advantage and earnings increase were I to teach overseas, and I'd be able to hit the ground running as soon as I'd graduated.

This all sounds like a solid proposition to me. As if it could form the basis of a solid career - something that I can do in the light of day while at night I continue with the writing of such things as this blog.

However, the question of teachers college isn't resolved just yet. Check back next week to see my less logical, more streamlined response to the points that I've laid out here and to the facts that I dredged up last week.

In the meantime, Wednesday's entry will be the last of the food-related Wodnes-dæg entries for a while (avocado fries, anyone?), and on Friday I'll post my attempt to redeem the movie The Seeker: The Dark is Rising.

Do you have any thoughts on writing while holding down a day job? Let me know in a comment below.

[Moon-dæg] New Moon, New Stats: The Teacher's College Route

It seems that now is not a good time to be looking into teaching English or History - traditionally over-supplied subjects - in high schools in Ontario.

For the past five years, if the Maclean's and National Post articles on the subject are any guide, teachers in general have had a hard time finding work. This is less true of those teaching technology, sciences, or French, but I am none of those and so there's no need for me to go too far down that road.

The Transition to Teaching 2010 report also paints a bleak picture.

To sum up the report, new teachers across the board were optimistic about their next five years, but largely un- or under- employed.

26% of those new teachers surveyed for this report stated that they had full time contracts, while in 2009 that number was 31%. Piecework is where the teaching jobs seem to be, with about 42.5% working part time, about 39% working with multiple schools, and about 37% working as on-call supply teachers. About 17.5% of new teachers in 2010 were working in non-teaching jobs to pay the bills.

Amidst the Intermediate-Senior certificate holders (my potential peers), 30% are unemployed (or just not working as teachers, I'm guessing), 48% are underemployed (they need to work a non-teaching job to supplement their teaching income), 20% are teaching daily supply, and 30% have regular jobs. Thankfully, I'm not trying or planning to get into teaching math and stats, because I know that those numbers add to something greater than 100 - but that's just how many teachers are out there, I guess.

So, using the Toronto District School Board's collective agreement with the Ontario College of Teachers as a standard for urban earnings, I could expect to make $45,709 a year as a teacher starting out with little or no experience.

That's for full time work.

Part time work is something that I could consider, and realistically I should look into it, but it's not really something that I think I'll be doing. That's also for work in Toronto. The Big Smoke. Ol' TO. But what would I be making in the country? or in the northern reaches of Ontario?

Barrie/Guelph/K-W aren't exactly the rural areas of Ontario, but they aren't Toronto either. In these areas my salary could range from $29,747.20 to $56,320. My calculations are based on this table, a 40 hour work week, and 32 weeks of work per year.

Going further away from TO, I think that it's fair to guess that starting salary for a high school English/History teacher would hover around $45-50,000. But does Northern Ontario, as represented by North Bay and Thunder Bay, hold the standard of living I've come to expect?

Both cities have at least five bookstores that stock used books (though North Bay, surprisingly, seems to have more). They both have a Bulk Barn - essential for cheap groceries). And they both have movie theatres (though North Bay has a non-chain venue with 6$ tickets and a slick site). But Thunder Bay has 16 regular city bus routes while North Bay has only 11.

Blame it on my fascination with Twin Peaks (despite the differences between the NW US and Northern Ontario), but Northern Ontario holds a strange romance to me. Yet, Victoria (and BC itself) also held that - and still does - though living there for 2 years certainly tempered that romance with the province's cold, grey reality.

Working with the Transition to Teaching's 2010 report, it looks like I've got a 3 in 10 chance of landing something full-time right out of teacher's college. Odds that are not particularly strong, but that would improve, slowly but surely (perhaps, optimistically, at 5% a year) over the course of the five years that my internet searching and chatting up friends and relatives who are recent graduates or currently teachers leads me to expect as a wait time between graduation and full time employment.

But all of this becomes most relevant after I've finished teacher's college. What's a standard one year program going to cost?

At the schools that I've applied to, tuition runs the gamut of $6-8,000 for full tuition. Add $1000 for textbooks. Living costs per month sit around $1,500 (based on the fact that most apartments do not have utilities included in their rent). So then, for the full teacher's college experience I would be spending about $27,000. A tidy sum, and one that could see me getting a loan or two.

And now, for the next week, I'll mull over just what these numbers actually mean to me. So check back then for my logical analysis of going to teacher's college. In the meantime, Wednesday's entry will be about pot-popped popcorn and this Friday I'll try to find some good in a film that made a whopping $947 at the US box office: Burke and Hare.

Do you have any stats on teacher's college and/or teaching that I've missed? If so, drop them in the comments.

[Moon-dæg] Like Red Pepper Paste to Rice: Returning to Overseas ESL Teaching (Moon-dæg)

As the moon once more fades into the end of its cycle and stands in the sky as a giant "C" for "crone," my focus on the topic of this lunar month begins to wane. This means a wrapping up of my working through the pros and cons of going overseas to teach ESL and the introduction of the next cycle's topic: going to teacher's college.

Bearing in mind the facts that I dredged up, my first lines of reasoning, and my relatively free form musing, I can decisively say that going abroad to teach ESL is definitely a serious option for me.

I've got past experience that I can refer to, it'd be a great experience for my fiancée and I, and it'd give us some actual earning power in a place where enjoyable jobs aren't so difficult to come by.

Yes, it would also put a substantial distance between us and friends and family, but that's what being young is all about. And on a grander scale, it's also a reflection of the fact that you can't actually be everything to everyone, nor can you (or should you) live according to another person's wishes. After all, once that person leaves your life, then you're stuck with a life that's not your own and that lacks its old anchor.

So, if we suddenly had the money to marry and were considering what we'd do next, teaching overseas is definitely the first thing that would come to mind. Unlike teacher's college, it's something that we'd be able to do together (adding to my remaining hesitance, however, is that she's not keen on training to be a teacher in spite of the ESL job being a teaching one), and from which we could honeymoon somewhere crazy.

All that holds us back is that marriage thing - neither of our parents would be particularly pleased or still be on speaking terms with us if we just took two friends and went to the nearest justice of the peace. But a modest affair should come in at a smaller price than that quoted by the Ontario Wedding Blog.

Actually, that there's such a cost to going overseas entwines the options of ESL teaching and teacher's college for me.

Both of these experiences would cost roughly $20,000, one way or another. Teaching ESL at least would only cost me roughly $10,000, but so too could the cost of teacher's college be split by semester.

The problem with going to teacher's college is that, given demand for English teachers, I probably wouldn't be making any money from it for a few years. And so a loan would only lead to debt. Having avoided that so far, I'd prefer to keep it that way. Especially since once creditors find out that I'm trying to also live by writing they'd probably break my wrists before my legs. And I need these wrists...for things.

Going back would be for longer stretch of time than just a year, however.

If I go back I plan to be there for as long it takes to either secure enough money and make enough of a name for myself to live off of my writing full time back in Canada, or long enough to become so established in Korea as to not be able to leave. The second possibility sounds dismal, or somehow shadowy, but I'd at least be able to opt out after two years if it turns out that post-secondary ESL teaching isn't for me.

Honestly though, thoughts of teacher's college at this point make me seriously consider just going and getting hands-on experience overseas. Teaching high school is something to get by on, but teaching at a Canadian college would be better. And post-secondary teaching experience from abroad would be comparable or better training than a certification program specializing in teaching high school.

Nevertheless, there's a risk involved in both.

In going to teacher's college I would definitely need to take out a loan with my current income projection, and that loan would not get paid back immediately. There's also the risk that even with proper training and certification I'm left hunting for a job again. Trying to do so in Small Town Ontario to save on living expenses wouldn't put me at much of an advantage, either.

Going overseas would also require a loan (that marriage needs to happen first), but this loan would get repaid much more quickly. So there's very little financial risk in going overseas. Direct financial risk, at least.

After all, we could land in sub-standard overseas jobs. Nothing terrible, it *is* South Korea, after all, but not getting paid on time, or working serious, uncompensated overtime, or having materials constantly change at the last minute would all be terrible for multiple reasons. The risk of working at such a school is certainly lessened by going with a public school instead of a hagwon, but even then there's a chance that we'd end up in different institutions or with strangely suspicious administrators or both.

Given my fiancée's reluctance to take the teaching path at home there's also a chance that she'd not enjoy the work, meaning that she'd be more interested in staying for a year (unless she could do something other than teach) rather than for two or more.

Nonetheless, the risk of overseas teaching seems much smaller. Even if this size is an illusion created by the promise of a relatively substantial income.

We'd be employed. We'd be able to quickly cover any debt that we created by going over. We'd actually be together while we got a taste of the wider world and some hard and fast experience that could be used back in Canada if/when we came back.

Teacher's college would very likely mean more time apart while I study and then look for a placement while she continues on with things as they've been. It would mean that neither of us would really be making anything more than we are right now. It would mean, really, that the only secure, sure, positive, progressive thing that we'd have is closeness to friends and family.

That's definitely valuable, but hardly the sort of thing that can directly help a young couple move out of their parents' houses and establish themselves once and for all in the world. Sure, maybe one of our friends wins the lottery and decides to share the winnings because we're still in province. But, given my past experience, I'm comfortable saying that we'd probably have the same chance of winding up in questionable teaching jobs in South Korea.

So, though for the next four weeks I'll be laying down the facts and weighing the pros and cons of going to teacher's college, it seems that overseas ESL teaching is the way to go.

But, perhaps my mind, like the moon, will change yet again.

If you've got any comments, drop them in the box.

[Moon-dæg] My Gut-Feeling on Teaching ESL in Korea

This is the third entry in my write up on going back to teaching English overseas. The first part gave some hard stats and numbers. The second built on these figures and involved a little bit more information relevant to me. This entry, since this is the entry closest to the full moon, is one that will involve as purely an emotional line of reasoning as I can manage. It may sound oxymoronic (har har), but this is coming right from my gut.

Finances figure largely in this decision of mine. The "start up" costs are pretty much negligible - even if I go over after marrying my fiancée and she comes with. Loans would be needed, but these loans would not linger long enough to stress us out given the kind of cash that we could raise working over there. And who doesn't like making lots of money? This guy definitely does!

But what's my gut feeling about the money I'll make overseas?

I feel really good about it. I mean, I'm not going to be able to go away for five years and then come back a millionaire or anything like that, but that's not what I'm after. Writing can be done while teaching - especially university teaching, since it's not necessarily time consuming (10-20 hours a week, often including prep time). And that means that I could actually be making money while also making a name for myself as a writer.

I've been writing lately (welcome to my blog!), but money making has generally taken a hit as a result. Making money and getting my writing out there, among other writers especially (I have very fond memories of the Seoul Writers Workshop and the Seoul Writers' Collective) and among other people would be awesome. But, then. What's to say that I wouldn't be able to get that kind of flexible employment here in Ontario?

This presents a quandary. But. The plentiful nature of ESL positions overseas is what draws me. And where am I going to find a "city of lights" to quote the Deep Purple song in South-Western Ontario? Granted, they were singing about Tokyo, but Seoul (and even Incheon, my old haunt) are just as bright. So there's still that pull of adventure.

And the fact that I could bring my fiancée with me is icing. Delicious, sweet, strangely nutritious icing.

But then I'd also feel a little bad.

I'd feel that I might be pulling her along with me rather than being joined by her. And I have the sense that as much as she says that she wants to try teaching overseas or to just be with me rather than constantly apart as we've been for the last few months and years before that, she'll be doing something that's outside of her comfort zone.

Stepping outside that zone is a good thing, but then her parents aren't young. Though, her mother is so "Old Country" that with one hand she offers amazing coffee and delicious cooking, but with the other hard criticism and an overbearing opinion. So pulling my fiancée away from that is good - Tauruses within families seem to clash more than cooperate - but it's also bad.

I mean, it's her mom after all. She used to email her nearly everyday when she was in university. They're close. And if something happened while we were away I would carry that with me forever. Not to mention her dad - much cooler, but also just as "Old Country." Though, it's unfair to say that old dogs can't be taught new tricks - years into our relationship they finally let us stay in the same room when I'm over there.

So, having my fiancée with me means that we'd be in for super sexy adventures abroad. But it also means that we'd be away from those close to us. Honestly, though, and this is something that I discovered when I was away the first time, were it not for her I'm not sure that I'd have come back in the first place.

Sure, there was graduate school and friends to come back for, but really, were it not for my fiancée, outside of the temporary situation of grad school, I'd probably have had very few reservations about going back overseas afterwards. I'd still visit regularly (those long summers off (two months once you're a fixture) from university teaching would be excellent for long visits) and I'd have the money to actually *do* things with friends while visiting.

So moral dilemmas aside, I think that there's nothing but benefit for going back from a social perspective. I've lived with my fiancée for a year and we're still together - heck, for a large part of that year we shared a two bedroom basement with another couple. Weathering that took much more than I expect a few years in Korea would.

But then what about the other friends we'd be leaving behind? Skype would work well - it did in my first round - and visits would be possible once we both had more vacation time. Really, I feel that this would be a negligible problem. Some of my collaborative work with friends here, on a fortnightly YouTube skit channel (watch for the first skit this weekend!) and on a Doctor Who podcast, TelosAM, might get more complicated because of the dateline and timezone differences, but co-ordinating schedules is always manageable.

Ultimately, I think that the reason why this is still an option that I'm taking so seriously is that I know that it works. When I was teaching in Korea last I did suffer a little bit of well, not burnout, but I began to feel undervalued by the end.

It was all well and good being a celebrity and probably featuring in one of my young co-teacher's fantasies (she blushingly asked if she could put her arm through the crook of mine when we all posed for a picture on my third to last day), but I was also dogged by the feeling that my students really weren't learning. Maybe that's an argument for not going back - I might just wind up adding to the pile of complaints that some Koreans have about the ineffectuality of foreign teachers.

But this feeling is more likely because of a change to my job description after my first few weeks. What I did in those early days seemed to bore students more than enthuse them. I was totally new to the teaching game then and that my revamped job description dictated that I should make my classes fun rather than purely educational was a welcome break.

But my new m.o. was exactly why I felt as I did near the end of my contract. I wanted to teach my students. I wanted to give them the skills and knowledge necessary to really get English as best as they could. But I had to marry entertainment to education. And my personality made that a little bit difficult to execute.

Nonetheless, going back offers adventure, money, and a chance to actually be self-sufficient. All through my undergraduate years it was almost a bi-monthly occurrence to email my parents and ask them to kick a few bucks my way. But that never happened in Korea. Yes, the three hundred I took as "start up" money quickly ran out and I had to take a small loan from my recruiter to last until the banks opened after my first weekend, but I never had to ask anyone for money after that.

As a student of English who once considered a career in academia, parents and advisors warned me about the dangers of working and making money. And I succumbed to those dangers.

I also know that working overseas is a great way to make lasting friendships. Graduate school certainly was, too. But working in Korea didn't cost me nearly as much. Yet, both have a certain air about them that forges friendships that I can best describe by comparing them to the kind of friendships made amongst soldiers in combat, though I've never been in that line of work.

Honestly, even if I were to stick around Ontario and move to a major city my feeling is that my current friendships would remain and others would spring up anyway. Why not let the others be with people from all the many corners of the world rather than just a few or a couple?

In the end, what I fear the most about going back is that I can't say for sure what my fiancée and I will be getting into. It's one thing if I went over alone and wound up at a crappy school. But I know that potentially bringing my fiancée into the same situation would make me feel directly responsible. I'm sure that she wants to go for her own reasons as well as those involving me, but it does seem to be solely my idea, and so I would feel terrible should anything go wrong for the both of us. If we kept to the public school system, though, that probably wouldn't be a problem. Public schools and big international recruiters (EPIK, GEPIK, JET) tend to be much more legit than many ma and pa out-of-house recruiting agencies.

If you've got any questions or comments about teaching ESL overseas leave them in the comments. And stay-tuned for the last part of this series, coming in next week!

[Moon-dæg] Reasonings on Teaching ESL in Korea

This is the second part of the four part series on teaching overseas. Last week I ran through some stats about teaching English abroad, and this week I'll be looking at the pros and cons that those stats shed light upon.

So, the first place to start, and the most important for any young up and comer, is salary. The money. As I noted last week the average salary for someone with their Master's degree over there (in English particularly) is approximately $2149.00 - 2417.74 a month (in Canadian Dollars). After deductions I'm left with $1890.26 - 2159.00.

$1890.26 - 2159.00 a month in a country where you can easily live off $500 a month is definitely a big deal. Living and working in Ontario my monthly costs are almost three times that - mostly because paying rent and utilities costs will fall on me rather than my employer.

Further, $500 a month in Korea does not mean a life of microwave noodles and instant rice. It's a life of movie seeing, museum exploring, out-dining luxury. Okay, well, maybe without the diamonds and bling. But, still. Living on that much a month would leave me with $1390.26 - $1659.00 to save. I'd definitely buy a bike again while over there (and take more precautions with it *ahem*) and that's a considerable cost. But big ticket items like that would be few and far between.

Taking a longer look, a year's worth of work would generate something to the tune of $19200. A figure that would be unheard of over here for an entry level teaching job. For example, working as a Communications prof would net me about 3-5000 per course depending on things like location, school prestige, class size, etc. If I had a 3-2 or a 2-3 course load that would mean that I'd be making $15-25000 a year. Okay. It measures up, but living costs would keep pace. Most colleges probably aren't going to pay for an apartment or utilities, after all.

I am also much more likely to get a job abroad. I've been overseas before, I am familiar with the school/education office hierarchy, and already have the outlines of the language in my brain. Working in a high school would be an easy gig to land, though I could wind up in another middle school.

But the main thing would be that I'd aspire to a university position. And this would likely pay even better - though I imagine that instead of 300 a month the deductible might be double that. Just a guess, a kind of worst case budget scenario.

So it definitely seems like a pro situation to go overseas rather than to stay here and either get to work as a college professor (not a bad alternative, though) or to go to teacher's college. On the financial front, that is.

But what about the social aspects of things?

I remember the first time that I was over there, it was incredibly liberating for the first month or so, but then it became crushingly lonely. And when the one person that I had spent most of my free time with left at the end of his contract, it seemed like being there for longer than the month that I had left would have been simply unbearable.

But. This time I have a built in defense against such loneliness.

I'd be going as part of a couple. My fiancée would be coming along - though, if things go as she plans, she'll be my wife at that point - and so loneliness becomes negligible. Skyping with friends back home will be easier since there will be three of us in most situations, and even when there isn't there'll always be at least one thing to talk about.

But then, two people living in a small apartment might speed up stir craziness. I'll need to figure out a way to keep my space. As much as she'll need a way to keep hers I'd wager. Barring the lack of personal space, though, my feeling is that it'd be a socially harmonious experience. We would definitely grow stronger as a couple. And we'd undoubtedly make some fellow ex-pat and Korean friends, too.

There would be the extra cost of a wedding, however. My fiancée insists on marrying before we go overseas together, and I see the sense in this. Of course, that would mean that we'd need to cover those costs before leaving. The "start-up" cost would be significantly increased.

According to the Ontario Wedding Blog, a wedding would raise the total "start up" cost by $20,129. The total "start up" cost would then be $23,763. Though any loans taken out to cover this could be repaid just a few months into our employment. But that would compel us to stay for longer to make up for lost savings.

The only other major consideration is the costs involved with flying back for Christmas and a stint during summer. And, since this consideration is based in money, it really wouldn't be a major issue.

Ultimately, then, it seems that the pros are financial and social in that we would expand our circle of friends and strengthen our bonds. And the biggest con would be the strain placed on friendships.

Next week, I ditch the logic and numbers, and write from my gut. As it will then be a full moon, I'll write as intuitively about going overseas to teach ESL as I can.

If you've had your own experience figuring out a major life decision feel free to share what strategies worked for you or any considerations that I might have missed in the comments.

[Moon-dæg] Some Stats on and Costs of Teaching ESL in Korea

Because the other two days of the week have a slightly more defined theme, I'm trying something new with Mondays over the next month.

Because it's the day named for the moon, I'm going to write four entries on one topic that follow the phases of the moon.

The new moon will be the factual entry, the one where I try to dredge up stats and figures and look at things as objectively as possible. The first quarter will be the first look that is logical, but also personal. The entry posted around the full moon will be the most personal of the entries. And the final entry, that posted around the last quarter, will be another logical look at the issue. In this last entry I'll also try to reach a conclusion about the month's issue.

This lunar month's theme is ESL teaching in South Korea.

According to Gone2Korea ESL Employment Services 17,273 westerners were teaching in South Korea in 2007. The unofficial number cited by the same site for 2011 is 30,000 (and includes those teaching without the proper visa).

On a smaller, more contextualized scale, the major player in Japan, JET, claims 1753 teachers in its program in 2011 while Korea's big name GEPIK claims 2252 for 2010. That GEPIK only covers the north-western province of Gyeonggi rather than the whole country (like JET), it seems that Korea has become an equal, if not bigger draw than Japan (full info here).

This is observation rather than fact, but it's safe to say that a considerable amount (at least 50%) of those who are teaching ESL in South Korea are there temporarily. Maybe they're working to clear some debt, to save some money, or just to take a year or two off from their regular lives. This means that there's a pretty big turnover rate. However, this turnover is also due to the burnout that some teachers planning a longer stay experience.

The job pays well, but having just two weeks of paid time off divided between vacation and sick days (sometimes also need for field trips), having to put up with ridiculous demands from faculty, and dealing with parents that can be as difficult as some students would make anyone bleary eyed.

I mentioned the pay in passing in the last paragraph, and now will get into it more seriously.

As a holder of both a BA and MA in English I can expect my salary to be around 2.4-2.7 million won a month (based on the 2.0-2.7 million won range given on the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education site) as long as I can find work in Seoul. At the current exchange rate that works out to something between 2149.00 and 2417.74 Canadian dollars.

Taxes run at about 3.5-7% of monthly income (according to Gone2Korea). So the median cost of taxes would be about 113.50 (=2270x0.05) Canadian dollars. And regular utilities cost 162,217.14 won per month, or 145.24 Canadian dollars (thanks to numbeo for that figure). So the monthly deduction from my pay would be about 258.74 Canadian dollars, I'd be left with something between 1890.26 and 2159.00 Canadian. That is considerably higher than most entry level jobs here in Canada (please correct me if I'm wrong), and I'd be able to save most of it.

There are 317 colleges and universities in Canada and 415 in South Korea (thanks, Wikipedia). Considering that about 80 or so of those in Canada are entirely Francophone and my French skills allow me to read the language and follow along with songs but nothing more, Canada effectively has about 240 schools to which I could reply. But even Korean universities and colleges dedicated to art and design have English teaching faculty, so I'd dare say that I could work at any of the 415.

Why do these numbers matter? Because my aspiration, if I do go back, is to get into post-secondary ESL teaching in South Korea. This will likely take a year of working elsewhere, however, since most universities and colleges have in-person interviews as part of their hiring process.

So, those are the benefits and costs of living and working in South Korea. Yet there are also the costs of getting there.

These costs involve airfare (generally reimbursed by your employer) that starts at approximately 600 Canadian dollars for a one way trip (according to FlightNetwork). They also involve the paperwork needed for your visa such as a Criminal Background Check ($40), transcripts from all post secondary institutions that you have attended (15$ each), a set of passport photos (about $15), and the visa application form ($50), and potentially a new passport ($87). So the grand total of the "start-up" costs is $822. Add another $995 if a certification course needs to be retaken, to bring that cost up to $1817.

Any reimbursement for airfare or from the certification company notwithstanding, that's a cost that could be easily recouped within two months. Any other debt that may be incurred as a result of going overseas could also be easily paid back within a few more months, or, at the most, a year.

So, there are the facts as I've found them on the net. Next week I'll look at their relevance to my own situation. And maybe I'll add in a few more costs to reflect that as well.

[Wōdnes-dæg] SOPA

Okay. So, SOPA (and the similar PIPA). For those of you who don't know SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act (PIPA stands for Protect IP Act), is a piece of U.S. legislation aimed at curtailing the freewheeling use of copyrighted material (video, pictures, lyrics). It is currently in congress and is to be voted on in less than a week's time (January 24, 2012).

Today was a day of protest in which many major sites blacked themselves out - either entirely (like Wikipedia or That Guy With The Glasses) or partially (like Google's homepage). But why protest this bill?

If you've been reading around the internet you've probably found plenty of information on it. Go ahead, Google "SOPA" right now. I'll wait.

Okay. So from what's online you'll learn that SOPA is something that will make activities like recording yourself singing along to a favourite song and then posting the video on YouTube an offence punishable by jail time.

Justin Beiber, whether he deserves such treatment or not for other reasons, would never have had his meteoric rise to stardom - instead he'd be punching plates somewhere or embroiled in an international legal battle. However, this law would also effect fan sites that use copyrighted materials and review sites like the Spoony Experiment, That Guy With The Glasses, The Angy Video Game Nerd, etc would not be able to function at all. Re-mixers and mash-up artists would be shuffled into court.

Directly related to the inconvenience of losing these sites, SOPA would also make free speech difficult since any use of copyrighted material would need to be permitted by the copyright holder. And if you want to get your hands on such a thing as copyright you need to lighten your wallet. To wax alarmist for a moment, SOPA could potentially make free speech not just equivalent with money (the basis of the Citizens United ruling, which makes corporations people in the US), but also require money.

Most netizens don't pull down the kind of income that could support their rapid use of copyrighted material. And so things would become quiet on the internet.

However, for all the doom and gloom that you're likely to find in the nightmare scenarios many online sources paint for SOPA's passing, the bill isn't without it's merits.

As a friend of mine (check out his facebook page here) pointed out, SOPA would be terrible in the short term. For the first five months things online would be slow. People might even start regularly reading books and print media again! But, by his reckoning five years down the road we would be under duress from a Great American Firewall, and so ISPs and hosting servers would spring up internationally. This would mean more internet innovation, and maybe some exciting new directions for the net.

It would also force people to be more knowledgeable about how the internet works. Because there are workarounds for the limitations that SOPA would impose. Darknets, and using remote ISPs for example. The "Internet" is just one set of channels that are accessible via modem, cable, fibre, or wi-fi.

But those first five months would be hell for everyone's habits.

Of course, given the success of this protest (read about key senators changing their minds (and four informative articles about SOPA itself) here), its passing seems about as likely as Obama closing Gitmo like he promised.

But all cynicism aside, it does appear that the people of the internet have been heard, and that the people in congress are acting according to their wishes. SOPA might just get knocked down!

Yet - as this article makes clear, a victory now is not a victory indefinitely.

Hollywood and the media industry is the biggest stakeholder in something like SOPA. What's pirated the most? What has the most copies floating around YouTube or the most repeats on things like Facebook? Pop culture, of course. And that stuff is covered in copyright. The copyright of studios, of artists, of writers, of performers, of producers, of directors, of mothers and fathers, of sons and daughters.

There's probably something being ripped off right now that's copyrighted to a dog even.

And Hollywood is not a weak industry. Music, movies, TV - entertainment - are all integral to peoples' lives now. The darker among us might pull out a reference to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and say that the drug that he describes in his book is here, but not as a pill. Instead it is hear as a sound, a picture, a thing that evokes feeling and lulls people away from their worries and cares.

People like being entertained. Hollywood provides that and charges for it, too. Thus, Hollywood has a lot of money.

With that money, Hollywood is likely just to write up another piece of legislation and try to get it passed later on. A victory now is but one in a single skirmish. But the larger coup has not yet been had - it may never be had.

So, finally getting to the theme of Wednesday entries, what I've been learning lately is that the political process (in the States) is broken. But it can be made to work, and the internet is a great way to facilitate the peoples' voice. However, I have also learned that this voice can't just release a single shout and then fall to silence. It needs to hold its note for a long time, even over periods during which it seems that no one is listening, before that note's meaning is fully conveyed.