Teachanywhere: Home or Away?

Notes from the General Manager, By Diane Jacoutot

A missing parakeet was returned to its owner in Tokyo this week, after it told the police its address. The owner, a 64 year old woman, had previously lost a parakeet and vowed to never have it happen again so the first thing she taught it was where it lived.  Clever.  As long as she likes the parakeet.

I left the confines of Teachanywhere London this week and returned to the States to help my parents move away from the house in which I grew up . It’s been interesting to pick through the dusty bits and pieces of my life, and that of my family, trying to decide what to move, and what to give away ...or toss in the bin.  Among the things I found were my Barbie dolls, old photographs in settings I had forgotten, letters from boyfriends I don’t even remember anymore and keepsakes from my first trip to Europe when I backpacked through with my Eurail pass at 19. Even then I had a desire to fly the coop.

I guess one of the things about living abroad is you really can’t take it with you. Unless is small, packable, weighs far less than 20kg and can be squeezed in between your socks and your comfortable shoes. You ask yourself not just ‘do I want this’ but ‘do I want this more than these other 10 things’. It makes you prioritise what’s important. I contemplate each thing I pick up from my childhood,  size it  and weigh it....  before usually deciding that someone else can benefit from it far more than I, and I’m left with a small number of very special items that are really worth lugging around the world.

There are good things and bad things about living abroad. On the negative side you are usually far away from family (though I realise some might see this as a plus but not me). On the positive side it makes you really evaluate where you have been and where you are going and what’s coming with you. And even if you can’t hold on to too many physical souvenirs, you will have tons of memories.

And these pack very nicely indeed.