So, I have this friend.
He graduated from gvsu last year and went to prague to get is TEFL (teaching english as a foreign language) certificate and attain gainful employment teaching the people how to speak american.
A large part of why he went there was because he had snagged himself a german girlfriend, after getting there I guess he upgraded to a Czech girlfriend and got himself a job, and a gallery show for his photography.
Anyway he's back in the states for a week. I visited him this weekend and he got drunk and told me that one of the main reasons he came back to the states was to convince me to go back to prague with him.
He goes on to say, "you should at least visit and see the country for a little while, you could stay at my place for at least three months as long as you don't mind hearing my girlfriend and myself in the other room." (note: I don't speak any czech, but he really didn't either when he moved there and got along fine).
Now, I added a business minor this year to by college experience, but if I push it I can graduate by the end of this school year (May 2007). However I will have spent virtually all of my money to accomplish this.
When I graduate after May I expect to have maybe $1000 cash, no debt, a car that will need to be replaced very, very soon, a piddling amount of assets which mostly consist of Videogames and nothing grander than a part time job at that point. (in order to finish all of my classes I need to do an internship and take a full class load which I cannot do while working full time at my current job, so that will likely go bye bye next semester.)
Tuition to get a TEFL cert. in prague looks to run between $1500 - $2000, and airfare to get there will be about $1500. My friend told me to budget living costs at about $1000 a month. (but during the time I'm living with him it can be less).
I have the option of getting $2750 in federal student loans next semester which I wouldn't actually need to cover my school cost (as I have just barely enough cash to cover it now) which would make that full amount ready cash for me that I could use to help pay for tuition and a flight to prague. However I would be in debt in that case and trying to pay down american dollars with czech currency.
Conversely I could not get any loans and just stick it out trying to get gainful employment in the USA after I graduate, I could take an extra semester to graduate and roll into being a 6th year senior in order to keep working full time and just going to night school, or I could try to become a Japanese english teacher after I graduate which would pay more money than teaching in Prague and I already sort of know some japanese but don't speak any czech.
it took my father 13 years to get both his bachelor's and master's degrees and I like the social networks formed around college so i'm not entirely opposed to taking a long time to graduate so long as I do it without accruing debt.
My friend had mentioned me coming to prague before but I didn't realize he was so entirely serious about it until this weekend.
As I have never traveled outside of the USA while damn near all my friends have and bragged to me about how awesome it is to go abroad the temptation to take my friend up on his offer and just move to prague is huge.
he also has been emailing me about the film scene in the czech republic telling me the whole art scene there is growing and that he would help me out as an assistant on any film I got started in the time I wasn't working.
So, what the hell should I do?
confused
cold
sore