Tag Archives: #Heading Home

Heading Home

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That went quick! My month long TEFL course finished up on Friday and now I’m heading home.

I’m sure I could have had a job lined up teaching English if I hadn’t been so wishy-washy. I hope to have at least a short term job starting later this week, so I couldn’t really justify passing that up for any teaching position.

I’ll be home later this afternoon. That should give me time to sort through the mail before I go get my UK physical on Monday. I don’t know why the US physical isn’t good enough for them (and it kindof pisses me off that it isn’t= the whole point of it is that it is supposed to be accepted worldwide).

If all goes well on Monday and they’re OK with the paperwork, then I should be heading off to work sometime Thursday. Hooray!!!!

It’s only for 10 days, but even 10 days at this point will be a huge help. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed.

Heading Home

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I’m at the Denver airport, waiting for my flight back home to Houston. It’s been a VERY busy couple of days here in Colorado.

I got here fairly early Monday morning. Shared a ride to Evergreen with my fellow attendee and new room mate Hope. We spent the next 2 days sharing a 2 bedroom suite at the Highland Haven Creekside Inn. We came for a ‘writing retreat’ along with another dozen fledgling writers.

The Highland Haven was a nice place to have the retreat. It was quiet and peaceful. The main rooms where we spent most of our time working on our writing had crackling fires to keep us warm. I loved seeing the snow on the ground, a small creek ran right alongside the property. The place was surrounded by huge evergreen trees. We even saw a small herd of deer pass slowly by while we all tried to shoot them (with cameras). 🙂

We had breakfast (included) in the rustic log cabin next to the office and then walked upstairs to the loft where we did most of our work. We were a small group (12 of us hoping to become published writers).  People from all over the country came to learn from past Denver Post travel editor and writer Kyle Wagner.

We spent our time writing short ‘front of the book’ articles. Kyle critiqued our writing and explained how to write articles that editors would love to publish. We learned the 10 most common mistakes, how to structure our article, how to write query letters, how to find the right publication for our story. We heard each others stories and helped each other work through ideas and come up with different, more ‘exciting’ ways to get our point across.

I think I have a good idea of what to do now. I learned my biggest problem is figuring out how to start my story. I need to figure out how to write a good ‘lede’. Something to grab your attention and drag you into the story, something to keep your interest, something to ‘tease’ you.

Yep, now I know WHAT I need to do. Now I just need to figure out HOW to do it! I think I have my work cut out for me.

Wish me luck!

PS- I wrote this last night. Thought I posted it, but got in a rush to board the plane and guess I forgot to hit the ‘post’ button.

Heading Home

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Things will probably be a little slow around the blog for the next day or 2. I got off the rig yesterday (NICE birthday present) on the helicopter and have been traveling since last night.

The company was nice enough to arrange hotel rooms for us (at the same place I stayed when I came out to work). The problem was, we got there at around noon and they didn’t have any rooms available til earliest 1400. 🙁

I was already tired, since I’d been up since 2200 the night before. I have been working the midnight to noon watch the past week or so. I went to eat lunch while waiting for the room to get ready.

At least the food was decent.

I went back to the front desk a little after 2, hoping they were going to have rooms ready. To my surprise, they did. 🙂

They had a porter help me bring my bags to the room. First thing we noticed was the smell. Disgusting! Like old socks, dirty laundry, moldy old basement. Yuk! His shoes squished through the carpet when he walked into the room and flipped on the lights to show me the bathroom.

OK, so he called the desk and they set up another room for me. We went back down there to trade keys, went back up to the room and… the new key didn’t work. 🙁

The porter found a maid cleaning rooms down the hall and got her to open the room with her passkey. At least I could check out the room and get settled a little bit. The porter showed up in just a few minutes with a new (working) key. 🙂

By this time it was after 3, and the driver was coming to pick us up for our flight at 2000. I figured I had better get up by 1800 so I could have a shower and a cup of tea.

I had already tried to check my email and it was impossible to connect to the internet in the room (again). I was really too tired to get dressed again and go down to the lobby to check email (or work on the blog).

I did get to sleep a couple of hours. I think I probably got 1-2 hours total on the flight to London this morning too. Im hoping I can get at least a little bit more on the way to Houston. It’s another long flight and I’ll be in the window seat this time. Last one I was in the middle (which I hate- doesn’t everyone?).

I should be home by dinnertime tonight (Houston time). I doubt I’ll manage to do anything tonight but pass out as soon as I get in the door.

I HOPE my luggage makes it this time. I’ll only have about 2 weeks at home before I have to be back onboard the ship again. I’ll have only 12 days at home to get everything done and rested up to go back over to Angola and start this trip all over again (in reverse).