Like many college students, I studied a subject that I loved without much consideration about where it would lead me in life.  Once I had completed college, I found that I lacked attractive opportunities and had no direction in my life.  It was around that time that I was bitten by the travel bug. My travels took me all over North America until I became bored of exploring my homeland. I felt that I could learn from contact with other cultures and I craved adventure. These travels took me to Korea, Japan, China, Mongolia, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, India, Nepal and Pakistan. While traveling I began teaching. I worked in language institutes in South Korea to make the money I needed for traveling.  At first teaching was just a means to an end, but eventually it became the end in itself.

When one is teaching for money and has little experience, it seems to be a job like any other. I went to work, did my job and went home. Later on as I began to care about the students, I started to wonder how they felt about me and whether I was really doing them any good. Efforts to improve my teaching came out of a feeling of obligation I was beginning to feel to the people I had taught and the nations that had shown me so much hospitality. This concern grew greatly when I volunteered to teach for the first time, while living in India. I stayed in a small town for five months. I couldn’t believe their generosity and kindness. I felt that I must repay them but they would not take my money. Eventually I went to a small school that needed help and volunteered.

Once I was no longer teaching for money it made no sense to do my job poorly. Why do something for free and then make it worthless? Why not make it something of value? In this way I became a real teacher. Moreover, it became my identity because it was how I presented myself to the people I cared about.  In this way, teaching became something I put my passion into.