Living the Dream

During a recent conversation on facebook, an old school friend suggested I was "living the dream".

Living the dream in Kuantan didn't begin with a lap of luxury or a turn of luck. I can tell you it all started in a strange and unknown town, amongst complete strangers, with no job and very little money.

It took a lot of belief and very hard work to reach the stage where I'm now "living the dream". At times, Kuantan seemed a difficult and impossible place to live, let alone realise dreams. We had problems regarding finances, employment and my immigration status, continually having to leave the country and go through Singapore to get a fresh stamp in my passport. I have numerous stories on this topic, and although I have almost filled two entire passports, it was by no means easy, and quite terrifying at times.

But six years on and we have created our own dream and are really living it right now!

Let me share a few points as to how I am "living the dream".

Firstly, employment. In England, I used to have some agency work as a picker in a warehouse. It was tough work, heavy lifting and carrying 8 hours (or more) per day. I enjoyed it and gave it my all, but I knew it was temporary in nature. I don't know if I could work in that way on a long-term basis.

I always loved English and teaching English, but opportunities for that in England were limited. I didn't fancy teaching a class of 30-40 children at a secondary school, and I didn't have any experience or qualification to do that anyway.

Malaysia has been a much more fertile ground for teaching English. I'm living the dream by teaching English from home, choosing what hours I want to work and accepting as many students as I can fit in my classes. We have registered our own company, Horne Learning Services in a few simple steps. My wife wrote me an offer letter and along with an application letter from me, I received the necessary permission to work freely in Malaysia for Horne Learning Services.

I decided to walk in to the Vistana Hotel one day to advertise myself as an English teacher. Now I'm working in partnership with the hotel and teach a class of staff every Wednesday.

Being our own boss is a luxury I'm so glad we've achieved. Working from home enables me to spend all day long with my family, being with my wife and children, as well as doing my life's work, which I love! If we want a holiday, we have a holiday. We work for no-one, which means our income is as much as we want it to be.

This leads to the second point - freedom. Being entrepreneurs brings increased responsibility to make things work, but greater freedom too. Working hours are dramatically less, whilst still earning a good income. We are free to take holidays, re-arrange classes any time the need arises, and spend all our time with our children to raise them just the way I dreamed of doing.

Our recent holiday in Kuching. We stayed for a night at Damai Beach Resort for my sister-in-law's engagement ceremony, and enjoyed the lovely scenery as shown in this photo.

Not having to "go" to work means we can spend plenty of time with our children. Such a joy!

The third way I'm living the dream - every day feels like a holiday! Kuantan has turned out to be a beautiful place with gorgeous hot weather every day and lovely, attractive places to go and see. The beach is a 15-minute drive from home, a living dream I would never have imagined to have.

Being from the all-too-gloomy England with its infamous rain and wind, living in Kuantan, Malaysia, really is living the dream. Waking up to bright, warm sunshine is such a blessing and motivation. I just couldn't ask for more.

And it's not just the marvellous weather, but the Malaysian lifestyle in itself. Life is so different here compared to in England. Things are much more relaxed in Malaysia, everything is generously priced, even the TV channels and packages are far more extensive. I see more sports for a better price than I could ever have dreamed of in England.

One can cycle down to the beach or a park and saunter the time away. With the vast majority of my English classes at 8-10pm, I'm pretty much free for the entire day. What a lifestyle!

Finally, I think there's something about making it in a foreign country, including overcoming obstacles and finding success amongst a people who originally are wary of your foreign status. Being able to overcome that barrier and work together with locals is "living the dream". Perhaps my friends, Robert in Kuantan, and Linda in Italy, will agree.

Living the dream is living a lifestyle that you choose, not one that is thrust upon you. I'm extremely fortunate that I've been able to create my dream and live it.

You too can do it if you put your mind to it!

Blog Flashbacks

Welcome to Blog Flashbacks Saturday!

The weeks seem to fly by, so here we are again. First up on Blog Flashbacks today is an essay I wrote along with my English tuition class around a year ago. The topic was on the role of elderly people and has been, quite surprisingly, a big hit on my blog ever since it was published! Check it out here:

The role of elderly people: an essay; October 2010

Second up today is a beautiful collection of framed photos of the Sultan of Pahang, which were on display at East Coast Mall. I was fortunately there at the right time to catch the exhibition. Now here's your chance to see these lovely photos:

Sultan of Pahang framed photos, October 2009

CPB members, vote for my photos here

Tuition Room Tour

Getting out - Going nowhere

"genuflect" - lower one's body briefly by bending one knee to the ground in worship or as a sign of respect. -Genuflection (noun)




Getting out - Going nowhere

This post is continued from "Downstairs and Diamond Water" which in turn began at "A Difficult Start" It would be best to read the full story so you can grasp the forward progression of our life in Kuantan.

I went on many afternoon walks in the sweltering sun as part of my 'getting out' campaign to find more students. I spoke to people I met in the streets, at their houses and in shops. I even met one parent whilst playing snooker on a free lunchtime. His son began attending, and subsequently brought along his friends too.

I also put up posters around some parts of Kuantan advertising my tuition classes. This was somewhat successful as I received a few calls as a result of using this method. The Kuantan Curry House put one of my posters up in their restaurant, and a number of Indian students came from that, most notably Mukund, a young boy who spent two years attending my classes.

I also spent a year or two teaching adults of various ages, who had come across my English services. It was the first time I had ever taught adults English so it was difficult at first as I had to come up with ways to personalise my lessons to their specific needs. (My oldest student was a 67-year-old Chinese man!) Now I've stopped teaching adults, which I usually did in the early mornings, because my wife is 7 months pregnant and we have a new baby on the way! So I won't be available at 8am anymore! I also have more than enough school students to make up for the loss of adults. Maybe one day those classes will start up again...

It was such a thrill to get to the point where I was earning enough money from teaching English to pay all of our expenses monthly with a little left over. This happened just as our cash wedding gift had run dry.

The next task was to improve the standard and variety of my teaching to keep the students I had, and at the same time, attract others. So whereas earlier I had to 'get out' to find students, I'm now at the stage where I can sit at home and basically 'go nowhere', and still have a steady supply of new students.

Parents talk about and recommend my tuition classes with their friends, my current students bring along siblings or classmates, and even some people come across this, my blog, before emailing me regarding sending their children to my English tuition.

Going nowhere is a lot easier than going out. I now spend good portions of time developing and expanding my syllabus, resulting in more effective, interesting classes, and a wider variety of exercises and games.

This ensures that my students have fun in my class, as well as experience efficient learning, and desire to share it with their friends.

Do you work at home? Or are you employed by another? Which would you prefer?

Who would be worthy of your genuflection?

English Essays

"eulogy" - a speech or piece of writing in praise of a person or thing




Essays

I attended English Martyrs R. C. high school in Leicester, England, and was blessed with a great English teacher, Ms. Fones. She is the one who fostered in me a real love of writing, in particular, essay writing, which we did a lot of at high school. I vividly remember writing essays about 'Pride and Prejudice', 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and 'The Merchant of Venice' for starters, all classic masterpieces in the literary sphere. That was particularly challenging as a teenager; now I write essays with my English students once a month about issues in Kuantan or in general, but they still find it just as difficult!

I make sure to actually write an essay of my own with my class, so that they can see that I too, am interested in the work I'm requiring of them. And once I've completed the task, I write it as a blog post. And I've been rather surprised to see that a lot of my essays have been quite popular on my blog in terms of pages visited.

So I invite you to peruse a collection of my essays which have been the topic of numerous English tuition classes in the recent past. I've totally enjoyed composing them. Writing gives me a way to express myself, and it is my biggest passion.

Thank you Ms. Fones for instilling this passion in me!

When choosing a career path, would one consider salary or passion as the deciding factor?

Explain five reasons why the Zenith Hotel will be good for Kuantan

What is your opinion of the role of elderly people in today's society?

Discuss the benefits of a train line linking Kuantan with Kuala Lumpur

Discuss the disadvantages of the Zenith Hotel

And finally, seeing as my word of the day is "eulogy", here is my eulogy of my terrific wife who last year graduated from Universiti Malaysia Pahang in the field of Chemical Engineering:

My great wife graduates from uni

(I know I've provided you with a lot of material to read in today's post - but I believe it's worth reading!)

Writing is how I feel I can most clearly and best express myself. How do you express yourself?

Downstairs and Diamond Water

"denude" - make naked or bare, strip the cover from; take all of something away from (a person)

(I found this word in a Winston Churchill speech recently)

This is a continuation of "A difficult start" in which I explained our first few months in Kuantan and the problems we were engulfed with. If you haven't read about our tough early times, you should go and read that post first.

Downstairs

Downstairs below my apartment lies a line of shops and restaurants, the most notable being the Kuantan Curry House. The Kuantan Curry House is owned and run by a lovely Indian family who helped me out a great deal in the tough early days in Kuantan. The robbery had made us feel extremely denuded. Whilst I enjoyed taking the 'roti canai' (fried bread dipped in curry) back upstairs to eat, it was the wife of the owner who began having tuition classes with me. Her name is Puraini. Even though Puraini didn't learn from me for long due to her work commitments with the Curry House, she was my very first student, which besides giving me my first small flow of income, gave me hope of finding more students in the future. Their four children have at various times, also attended my tuition classes. We remain good friends with the Kuantan Curry House to this day.

Diamond Water

Secondly, whilst looking for a job, I came across two men selling Diamond water products. They were quite helpful but couldn't get me an official visa. So I didn't really work for them for too long at all - I didn't sell a single product in the mere two weeks I went around knocking on doors advertising Diamond water filters.

In addition to promoting Diamond, I also passed on my business card and introduced myself as an English tutor searching for students.

It was for this reason that I nevertheless knocked on a door whose owner clearly had a Diamond filter in their front yard. I told her that I was an English teacher looking for students and that very same night she sent her two children, Alston and Regine, for tuition class with me. 

It was a moment of great joy as my difficult times were beginning to dissolve. From Carmen, the mother of these two children, came a flurry of referrals. Many hopeful, desperate prayers of faith were answered as I gradually built up a number of students to teach each week, in addition to a growing reputation in Kuantan.

Which people have had a big influence in your life?