As anyone who knows me knows, I live in Portugal's beautiful capital, Lisbon.
I teach English there and live with my wonderful girlfriend, just outside the city. Moving there has been one of the best choices of my life, after a really nice three years in Poland where, in the end, the salary I had just restricted me a bit too much.
Fast forward to this summer, and I decided to come back to England, the country where I grew up, for only a 6 week contract at a university. The main motivator was money, I'll be honest. The salary for this 6 weeks is something like 4 months of my regular job's salary, back in Lisboa.
But this was a huge mistake. The job here is horrible. The university is total chaos, horribly disorganised and the accommodation for the visiting teachers is in a god awful place called Perry Barr.
I guess there's no deep, hidden meaning to this blog, whatsoever, other than to say that the very idea to come here was a mistake. It's funny because my reason for teaching English was, in the first place, to give up chasing money - which I did a lot of in my old job as a data analyst - and to start doing what I love. Even here, I've loved the teaching, and my students have been excellent to work with.
What I can say, with absolute certainty, is that this is going to be the last time I leave my lady, my home and my life for the summer to earn a few extra quid!