2020 A Year in Review
A Rollercoaster of a Year
2020 has been a turbulent year for mostly everyone, and it really doesn't matter how you dissect it and analyze it. It's not to say that there hasn't been any good moments in the past year. I think it is human nature to focus more on the bad things rather than the good things, and my goodness has 2020 delivered an insane amount of bad things this year. Truth is, I've never seen so many memes about how horrible of a year 2020 has been to us all. The year started out with news about a new highly contagious coronavirus breaking out in China, protests around the world, civic unrest, the rise and spread of a worldwide pandemic, nearly 2 million deaths related to Covid-19 worldwide, 343,000 Covid-19 related deaths in the US, more than 3,000 dead every single day now in the US, a heated presidential election, the culmination of Brexit, a mutation of Covid-19 with a 53% higher rate of transmission, and an increase in anxiety like we have never seen before. Truth is, I could go on. But I'm not going to focus on the bad things this time, because there are good things that did happen this year.
A Great Start
In January, I married the love of my life, my beautiful wife in the picture above. This picture is from our wedding that took place the first full week of January 2020. We decided to have a wedding in Mexico, and it was a beautiful wedding. There was family, food, music, dancing, and an all around great time. I also got to visit Teotihuacan, which was breath-taking, literally. It really showed me how out of shape I am. I would love to go back at a later time, hopefully when I am thinner and in better shape. Next time, I want to climb to the top.
A Career Change
2020 was the year that I finally decided that I wanted to teach English as a second language. Sure, it's a job that doesn't pay much money, but in my opinion, it's a rewarding job. I have always loved languages ever since I was about 12 years old. So, getting to do this is really a dream job. With money I had left over from student loans, I decided to take a TEFL course.
At the time, I left my job, moved back to my hometown temporarily to take this TEFL course online. It was a learning experience. It wasn't a waste of time, but it did show me that I wasn't receiving the adequate knowledge and experience I personally needed to feel comfortable teaching English. I graduated the course in August. At this point, I decided that I still needed more training, so I enrolled in a Cambridge CELTA course through a school in Mexico City called International House. That was a scary move for me. Here I was, taking a huge leap toward something that was a dream, but little did I know, that it would be a good move for me.
Moving to Another Country
The last day of August, I flew out to Mexico City. I made the decision to move to Mexico. This was one of the scariest decisions I have ever made in my life, but it was also one of the most exciting and rewarding decisions I have ever made. Anybody who knows me, knows that I am always up for an adventure. So here I am! I have been in Mexico ever since August 31st.
Graduating CELTA
I just recently graduated from my CELTA course, and I couldn't be more excited. The CELTA has given me the experience and the tools that I needed to better prepare for teaching. For anybody who wants to teach English as a second language, the CELTA is the way to go. Not only does it give you the the proper tools that you need, but it gives you hands on teaching experience. In order to graduate from the CELTA course, you have to have a bare minimum of 6 hours of teaching experience during the course. This helps quite a bit. Without it and the feedback from teacher/mentors and fellow students, there is no way I would have walked away from the course with the confidence that I could do this.
Hope for a Better Year
With my CELTA behind me, I am now looking for a job to start out my new year. I couldn't be more excited and nervous at the same time. I am confident that I am going to find a job that I enjoy doing while making a little bit of money. Did I say little? It doesn't matter though. I'd rather make less money and be happy than having lots of money and being miserable. Right now, I have a few prospects, but I don't want to talk about those just yet. I don't want to jinx myself. So, wish me the best of luck!
I plan on blogging this new year. I am going to try to do a better job of documenting life here in Mexico. I want to show you what life is like for me here. I want to show you pics and videos of some of the amazing food here and the warm and friendly people. Mexico is a beautiful place with beautiful people, amazing food, culture, and history. I have been learning that there is so much more to see and experience when it comes to Mexico than I had ever realized. Mexico is a culturally diverse country, and I would love nothing more than to be able to share that with you, eventually. This coming year I want to blog about food, culture, and Spanish of course. And I am going to share my experience teaching as well.
New Year's Resolutions
I normally don't make New Year's resolutions, but I think I would like to make some this year. So here we go!
Focus on Career and Personal Development
This year I resolve to become the best teacher that I possibly can. I resolve to continuously read and study teaching resources and materials to hone my craft. I also resolve to start blogging regularly, however often I determine that to be. I can't say that I will blog every week. I would definitely like to do so. I just don't know if I can find enough interesting things to talk about every single week. But I do resolve to blog at least twice a month.
Focus on Health
This year I resolve to make simple resolutions concerning my health. I don't resolve to make big changes, but instead I resolve to make several small doable changes that can have a lasting effect on my overall health. I resolve to drink more water every single day. I have noticed that I feel better when I drink more water. God knows I don't like to drink the stuff, but I surely need it. With this in mind, I resolve to limit my consumption of soda every day. I think it is foolhardy to say I won't drink soda. Come on! I know better than that. But I can bring myself to drink the equivalent of one or two cans a day. I believe that is a doable goal for this year.
Finding Balance
I am the world's worst when it comes to spending insane amounts of time doing things that are not profitable to me, whether it is spending too much time on social media, or playing games, or just surfing the internet for no specific reason other than to waste time, which I am so perfect at doing. Since moving to Mexico I have greatly neglected my meditation practice, and honestly, I think that is why I feel so out of balance and focus. Meditation does have its way of bringing greater clarity and mindfulness to your everyday activities. So I resolve to return to a daily meditation practice. And I resolve to start a daily practice of gratitude. So often I focus on the negative side of life, but all in all, I have had so many blessings this past year. I want to focus more on those kinds of things rather than the heartaches that plague us so often.
My Resolutions This Year:
Become the best teacher I can be.
To blog regularly.
Drink more water and less soda.
Return to a daily meditation practice.
Start a daily gratitude practice.
I think we all hope that 2021 will be much kinder to us than this past year has been. As tumultuous of a year as 2020 has been, it hasn't been altogether horrible. There were plenty of good moments in 2020. Hopefully, with 2021 I can learn to focus more on the positive things rather than the negative things and be grateful for every little blessing. And through doing this, maybe those blessings will multiply into more and greater blessings than the previous year. I hope 2021 will be kinder to you this year as well. Actually, I hope 2021 will be the best year of your life. And maybe together, we can make it so!
