San Francisco is a nice place. It has a nice environment being on the ocean and there are some surrounding mountains. The weather is pretty mild too. It rarely gets hot and it doesn’t get that cold.
There are some other nice things about it and I have met a few great people here.
However…
I have lived here for more than 5 years and there are some things that I do not like about it. And for your information I have also lived in 7 US states, 3 countries and traveled to many countries in Europe and Asia.
So…
It’s crowded
Because of some of the things that I mentioned above San Francisco attracts a lot of people. However, there are just too many people for me. There is too much competition for everything.
I also lived in Shanghai and that’s even more crowded (like 20 mill.) probably for similar reasons. People flock to the popular places. It’s a big city and well at this stage of my life I have had enough.
There are a lot of parks you can go to, but on the weekends there are just too many people in most places.
Most people aren’t that friendly
Maybe it’s just the big city thing. There are too many people and space is precious and people are encringing on your space, so you just want to tune out and put your headphones on.
Maybe some of the cooler people here in SF have been here their whole lives.
They were raised here.
I met quite a few cool people in the jiu-jitsu and judo community although like other communities they can be kind of hard to break into. The community at CCSF has been good.
If it wasn’t for them I would pretty much have no social connections.
So it’s not really an easy place to make friends. Most people are transient in SF. Some are homeless transient types and then others are just here for school, a start up, or a short time.
The ones that have been here a long time probably don’t like the transient types. And well I am not that socially outgoing so that’s not going to make making connections easy.
I have been here 5 years and aside from jiu-jitsu/judo I don’t feel any more connected to this place than when I first arrived.
Homelessness
It’s kind of an eye sore. I mean there are a lot of homeless people here and part of that reason is because some are actually sent here from other cities on a free one way bus because of the social welfare programs.
The other cities don’t want these people so they ship them here.
You can see people shooting up on Mission St. or even Montgomery St. and you have to watch out where you step in some places because there is human shit and needles on the ground.
There is also a lot of urban camping in SF, Berkeley and Oakland.
People say the tech scene has taking over
I personally don’t know much about this as I have only been here for 5 years. I did come here first in 2002 and did think about moving here then.
People say that it has taken over the city and caused gentrification. It’s apparently not as interesting as it used to be.
Class and race issues
I feel like I get some racism and prejudice here coming from some people and often lower class African Americans. Some say there is “white trash” which I think is kinda true as I grew up in a place kinda like that with a lot of “rednecks” or “white trash” if you will.
I mean the term is kinda derogatory as they are people, but yet these kinds of people lack manners, education or something.
And well I have to say there is also “black trash” too.
That’s a subset of the African American population that is low income, not very happy, educated and who probably blames the white man for all of their problems… which reminds me of a video on Youtube (an ad) about the “black card“.
San Francisco is pretty diverse, but that doesn’t mean that everybody is living happily together. It’s very politically correct, but that’s just politics. How people act is a different thing altogether.
A lot of people assume that just because I am white I am richer or whatever.
But ughhh…
I currently get food stamps…
But…
You know that’s just temporary just like San Francisco is. And I guess that’s one good thing about San Francisco is that there are a lot of social programs for the low income.
However, some people don’t like that about SF.
Class and money
I am not sure if this has anything to do with San Fran in particular, the USA, western culture or whatever, but people definitely judge you by how much you make or don’t make.
If you are a “street performer” you’ll get a lot of shit. Some people will love you – at least superficially and others will treat you like shit.
To them you might as well be a homeless person.
It’s expensive
You probably already knew that. All that competition to live here makes it expensive. That includes rent and transportation and probably nightlife (which I just don’t do) if that is your thing.
The place I live
Although the location is nice and convenient (in Chinatown) it is by far the ugliest, lowest quality and most expensive place I have ever lived. Where I live the people are mostly low income and I can say most of them are not that happy or healthy.
A lot of people have died since I have been here too in this SRO. Some from old age and others from suicide or drug overdoses.
There are bed bugs and dust mites. Here is where I learned that I have a dust mite allergy.
Anyways my time here is coming to an end and I will be happy to be out of here around the new year.
I had a realization yesterday while hiking out in nature at McClaren park.
It was this…
Often the coolest path is the one that many people don’t go on. It might be more difficult or less trampled for other reasons, but it’s often just better.
I wrote most of this a couple of weeks ago and just finished it up…
Recently I have done some experimentation with psilocybin mushrooms that I have found in the wild. My interest in psilocybin began when I learned about the benefits of psilocybin.
I will attempt to describe some of my experiences.
A lot of people say take things like take 2 grams if you want a light experience. Or take 5 grams if you want a “heroic dose”, but I think there are problems with that advice.
First off there are many different kinds of psilocybin mushrooms and they have varying amounts of psilocybin, psilocin and baeocystin. I saw a cool chart in Paul Stamet’s book Psilocybin Mushrooms Of The World that showed the differences between some of the species.
I couldn’t find that image online, but I found this that says the psilocybin content can range from .16% to 1.73%.
According to Alan Rockefeller psilocybe cubensis is the most commonly sold magic mushroom, but it’s psilocybin content is less than half of some other species that grow around here and in the North West.
And you are unique. So if you are considering experimenting with it know that what might work for you won’t work for others and vice versa.
Anyways…
A lower dose experiment
Today I did some hiking around San Francisco mostly near San Bruno mountain. Prior to today I had a night where I didn’t sleep very well.
I got up a little early around 8-ish as I couldn’t sleep well.
I ate three medium-small mushrooms and here are some things I noticed:
My mind is calm
No negative thoughts
No anxiety
No ruminating
More in the moment
Body feels fine
Slight enhancement of visuals
I also ate about 1/3 of a 100% cacao chocolate bar. Cacao contains theobromine and a small amount of caffeine. Both are stimulants. Since I did not sleep much more than 4 hours the night before I did this.
As usual before I went hiking a did some yoga. Aside from the cacao I didn’t eat any meals. 1 or 2 days a week I will skip a meal or 2 (intermittent fasting/time restricted feeding).
Anyways I wasn’t so sure how much I would feel from those mushrooms. The last time that I ate them I had a rather intense experience which I will tell you about later, but this time I hardly noticed them.
Shortly after I arrived at the San Bruno mountain area I decided to eat the mushrooms and a little more cacao. I continued walking and also decided I should do some yoga and meditate as my body was feeling painful as I didn’t sleep much.
I found a little park area with some concrete picnic tables and did a little yoga and meditation. It’s amazing how those things can make you feel better.
I did some hiking around that area, but I never really felt the psilocybin come on like you sometimes do. I had more mushrooms, but decided I would save them for another time.
At some point I noticed which seemed like the first effects was a slight enhancement of colors. But that could have even been in my head as I have taken them before, but…
I think I become more in the moment just looking around exploring and eating blackberries!
I must have ate 2 cups of blackberries!
I saw like 3 banana slugs and then one leopard print slug. The fog started to come in and drip down drops of rain. It was quite nice.
Eventually I decided to go back and as I was on the bus back I realized just how calm I was. I wasn’t anxious to get anywhere or annoyed with the people or ruminating about something stupid like I sometimes do.
After this experience I can agree on the scientific fact that psilocybin mushrooms work in a similar way as meditation.
I just felt in the moment and that was my experience with a lower dose of psilocybin mushrooms. I wasn’t out there and I didn’t have any side effects except for a moment of light nausea that went away when I ate some blackberries.
A higher dose experiment
After reading about some of the experiments with high doses at John Hopkins university and from some other sources I decided I would eat them at home and stay inside which would be different as I usually go outside in nature for this sort of thing.
So I made a psilocybin soup! I added about 6-7 small dried mushrooms and 1 big dried mushroom.
How I made it
ginger
nutritional yeast
water
psilocybin mushrooms
a little seaweed
a little kale
salt
The soup was quite good. After I ingested it I lied down to meditate. It wasn’t long before I started to feel the effects. It may have been 30-40 minutes or so.
This was an intense experience that lasted a good 6 hours with the first 3 being the most intense.
They say it can be hard to separate your senses. That means that seeing and hearing can become one. And I can’t actually remember or tell in one case as there was this sort of communicating sounds and or visions about insects.
I couldn’t quite determine what they were. It was like I was hearing some sort of animal or living things communication with me. It was sort of screeching like but not loud.
It was kind of like insects or something. And it was really weird as a few days later I read that one of the reasons why some scientists think that these kinds of mushrooms make psilocybin is to keep insects from eating them.
Anyways…
Here are some things I experienced…
Hallucinations
Fear of death I felt like I was going to die
Anxiety
Panic
Terror
Crying (first time in many years)
Euphoria
The kind of hallucinations I have experienced with mushrooms are distortions of things. I never really saw something that wasn’t there, however some things become more vivid, move, distort, you may see doublish momentarily and one time before this experience I saw part of a dirt road sort of animate and become fractal like in a way and move like water.
I mean it was the color of the dirt still, but it was not still. It became fractal like and moved like water for just a moment.
Death
I have experienced the sensation that I was dying several times on higher doses. This fear that I ate the wrong mushrooms and it was going to kill me. That has happened several times at a higher dose.
Panic, paranoia, terror…
All these things sound bad at a high dose so why do it?
It probably does sound that way, but there is also something going on here that is hard to explain. At a high dose you are really going to go somewhere mystical.
And despite being terrifying at times they have also been verycathartic. Since I first started writing this piece I have had another very intense higher dose experience.
I told the story with my webcam although I haven’t published it yet. More coming on that soon.
Oh and if you found this article in search and you are wondering how much should you take then I would say to start small. There are benefits to both small and high doses. And unless you are taking psilocybe cubensis then I wouldn’t go by weight and you have to also consider your body size too.
It’s pretty unpredictable until you try so that’s why I would start small.
I once read that all emotions could be boiled down into two: love and hate. And I certainly do not love feminism.
How could I like it? It’s all about resentment. I remember being told one time that feminism is about “equality”. I think actually my sister might have told me that.
However, if it was really all about equality then why do they call it feminism? Shouldn’t it be humanitarianism? Or fem-masculinism? Or perhaps something else?
Sure you may have been discriminated against because you were a woman. But you are not alone and there is always someone out there that had it worse than you.
Most everybody suffers from discrimination in one way or another. And we all discriminate in one way or another too. As Jordan Peterson said relationships are the most obvious way that we discriminate.
Think about it.
Why did you choose the person you did? Why not someone else? In fact why not anybody or everybody else?
That would be less discriminatory.
I think feminism has nothing to do with equality. That’s like an excuse. It seems to me that it’s a group of bitter, angry and/or resentful women who want more rights and more power.
They want more rights and more power.
You are not actually equal either. You are similar, but there are inherent biological differences between men and women.
For example, in the most egalitarian societies like in Scandinavia women and men tend to default to more typical work roles. Females doing more social and caregiving type positions and men doing more engineering, science and computing roles.
I am sick of seeing the word “compassion”
I was on the bus yesterday and I saw a girl – that’s a right girl, I could have said woman, but I naturally said girl and she was filling out an application that had a question on it.
It said, “What is your definition of compassion?”
I think they should have said, “What do you think our definition of compassion is?”
It’s like a buzzword now, but…
It’s being used in such a superficial way by “morally superior” people.
I got in a little argument with my sister and father the last time I went home about some law that they are or were trying to pass in Canada about making it mandatory to use certain pronouns to refer to transgendered people.
I think that is stupid.
Look.
Do you what you want, but why do you need to have a law that makes it mandatory to use certain words for you and your ways?
That’s wrong.
There are no laws for such things for men and women. Why the f*ck should we make up more laws and more privileges for a supposed new sex.
That is just dumb.
Anyways so they seemed to think I was like some sort of homophobe or some conservative freak because I don’t support that.
If you are homosexual then good for you. Do that. But I can’t relate. If you want to get married to the same sex then do that. I am not going to try to stop you, but I still can’t relate.
It’s not my business.
And don’t try to make it that either. I have met a few gay men who seem to be attracted to straight men or think they can convert a straight man or even go so far as to touching a straight man.
But you should keep that to yourself and find someone who is into that not someone who is not into that.
And the same goes for the transgendered folks.
It’s like baseball. If you like baseball then great, play. But I have no interest in baseball.
Homosexuals are roughly 5% of the US population
That number is from the book, “Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are”. And it’s based on what people are actually doing online and what they are searching for in the USA.
Of course there are differences between locations as the place where I currently live is in San Fran and that number is way higher.
Transgender
And I would guess that the numbers of transgendered folks are on average less than homosexuals.
So should there be more privileges for a tiny minority of people compared to the vast majority?
That doesn’t make sense.
Like o.k. you are a human, but are you actually an exceptional person? I understand that you want to be exceptional as I’ll mention below…
Here’s an advertisement I saw in the BART.
What the f*ck is this? What does this suggest? That it is o.k to be transgendered, sleazy and suck a lot of dick if you have HIV?
In my opinion this is the worst ad that I have seen on the BART. Like you are going to be amazing if you dress up like this? More on attention later.
Anyways…
The World Health Organization used to define transgendered folks as having a mental health problem. But the LBGT groups did a bunch of protesting and that changed in 2018.
These politically correct groups have some power, but are they correct?
You were born in the right body
First off many think that they were born in the wrong body, but you had no choice. I think that is a problem and you have issues. Lots of people regardless of their sex have stuff that they wish they could change about their body.
Me too.
Some people are lucky and attractive and others are not. That’s the way it is. Life is not fair.
Transgendered folks have high rates of suicide
Your first response may be that is because they get a bunch of shit from other people. Well, maybe but some places are more accepting than others such as in Scandinavia.
I’d say almost everybody at one time or another is going to want to change something if they could.
You are what you are.
On the physical sense you are what you are and I think you need to accept that or otherwise you are going to suffer. I think you should be more grateful for what you have.
Because it could be worse.
Instead of being a man trapped in a woman’s body you could be a man with one leg trapped in a woman’s body. And it could be worse than that too.
You do literally have issues if you think you were born in the wrong body. If you want to be a man and you are a woman then you have a problem and some would say that is an issue.
There’s plastic surgery, but…
It’s probably not going to make you happier. That’s what the studies say. You might get a temporary boost in esteem, but then your happiness levels will likely return to how they were.
Remember you can’t actually see yourself most of the time.
And if you really are supposed to be a woman and you are a man then why not just cut your dick off? Well, there are studies out there that show that many are not happy with their modified genitals.
I know a lot about attention and how to get it by changing my appearance. When I dress up, paint my face and do all of that I can get attention. I think some people just want attention – so they change their sex or pretend to be someone else and look different.
Just like the transgendered performer in the pic above. It’s about attention.
They want to be different because they will get attention. But just know that attention is not necessarily good and it won’t necessarily make you happier. I know that.
It’s maybe just a phase.
There is a chance that if you are transgendered or gay that it is just a phase. You might not feel the same way ten years from now as you do now.
You are probably influenced by the internet.
There is so much weird porn out there that so many people are getting influenced by it. Maybe they think that it looks cool to have a set of boobs and a dick.
There is a name for that genre of porn too, but I can’t recall it.
It’s all in your head
This is just stupid.
On the bathroom door
I hate seeing this shit which is posted on the public library bathroom in Chinatown, SF.
99.9999% of the time there are just 2 sexes – male and female. A hermaphrodite is a mutation and other than that if you think you are somewhere in between then it is all in your head.
You were born with either two XX chromosomes or an XY set of chromosomes. You either have a penis or a vagina. There is no in between.
That’s all in your head.
That sign was probably the work of more protesting and what not by the LBGT community.
It’s not like you can just choose your sex and who you are.
Not really.
But, yeah you can pretend or get surgery or take hormones, but you are just messing with nature if you do the later two.
You have limitations and one of those is your body.
Look, do what you want, but in my eyes you don’t deserve any special rules or privileges because of your made up sexuality or because you are gay or a feminist.
I can’t relate.
Like I said earlier I have no interest in baseball so I am not going to go to the game or hang out with them or pretend to like it.
Back to “compassion”
So those were some of the things I mentioned and then my sister says something like, “well how about a little compassion?”
I said I am not the Dalai Lama.
Later I sent an email to her and a video titled something like, “Compassion is a vice” that someone made from one of Jordan Peterson‘s clips.
And I never heard back from her which was like 4 months ago. Which I think means I am getting the cold shoulder, ghosted, the silent treatment or whatever you want to call it.
It’s ironic that the word “compassion” was used, because ignoring someone for months on end is not anything like compassion.
It’s a word with meaning, but it’s a word that is getting abused and certain people seem to have their own definition and agenda behind it.
Back to feminism.
I think feminists feel entitled as well as some of these other groups. They feel like you owe them something and ironically in their quest for “equality” I think they just became more like men – their supposed oppressor.
Double standards
It’s forbidden to hit a women and almost everyone including many men will be quick to blame a man or come after a man who hits a woman.
But when the same thing happens the other way around most people don’t seem to care. In fact it’s totally acceptable for a woman to hit or slap a man in the face.
And you can see this in the media. I can recall a movie I saw recently called “Colossal” that shows a woman slapping a man several times.
Woman slaps man (Jason Sudeikis)
It’s a simple game.
If you don’t want to get hit then don’t hit anyone else. But some American women seem to feel justified with hitting a man. And there are some women out there – like some of my neighbors who abuse the fact they are female.
They’ll run their mouths and be totally disrespectful and say things that most men would never say to each other because of the possibility of physical aggression.
And the funny thing is that if something happened and a man did resort to violence with a women then they would call the cops and play the innocent little girl or make up some lie to cover their ass.
The law is mostly on their side.
The fact is that in many cases women are the ones that instigate fights.
Male and female, light and dark, yin and yang. You cannot have one without the other. You are not “god”. You are not simply the most amazing creature on earth because you have a vagina and can give birth.
Politics suck
I have no interest in politics and I think feminists and the LBGT community are something like political parties. I think a lot of their issues stem from resentment.
They want more rights because they are hurt and unhappy. It’s an egotistical thing. Sure you may have had it tough, but so hasn’t everybody. And if you think you had it tough then I can assure you that there is someone in some 2nd or 3rd world country that has had it way tougher.
The psilocybin mushrooms (possibly psilocybe azurescens) that I found
I got interested in these again many months ago after hearing about some of the benefits of psilocybin mushrooms and other psychedelics like: increasing the psychiatric trait of openness to experience, helping depression, anxiety, quitting smoking and making mental breakthroughs.
I may have heard about them from a few places, but one of them was from Jordan Peterson talking about the studies being done on them at John Hopkins university.
I’ll show you a video later on that too.
So…
I spent the last month or maybe 2 looking for and studying psilocybin mushrooms.
It was amazing when I found them!
Finally!
Isn’t he cute?
I had looked all over San Francisco: in just about every major park, in the mountains near Berkeley and in South San Francisco on San Bruno mountain.
I did lots of hiking and saw lots of cool plants, ate some berries and even some uncool ones like poison oak – which was horrible and I got a rash for like a month on various parts of my body.
I didn’t find any psilocybin mushrooms and lots of people online were saying that it’s not the season for them as it’s too dry which is true, but I found them.
I found them where I wasn’t expecting them either. Well, kinda, they weren’t in the places other people where saying either like in: wood chips or in cow shit as they are not any cows in nearby.
I was hiking in the “secret location” looking around and I felt a little tired and decided I needed a little rest so I went sat down and meditated for 20 minutes and asked for some help finding them and then not long after that I found them!
Amazing how I found them.
I was walking in the grass in a sort of somewhat dampish area.
Then I pushed aside some grass and there they were. I am not exactly sure what species they are but they are either psilocybe azurescens, cyanescens or cyanofriscosa. They didn’t have the wavy cap like cyanescens.
It’s also possible that in that location I found several types. I did find some more later which were smaller gold-brownish and resembled cyanascens as they had somewhat of a wavy cap.
The ones in the pics above did not have a wavy cap and most resemble the azurescens.
Anyways…
I had been studying mushrooms since I started looking for them. I also learned about the poisonous ones too, because some can kill you or make you very sick like: galerinas, death caps and amanitas.
I would take some home and try to figure out which ones they were. I had looked at a lot of pictures and almost immediately I could tell these were psilocybin mushrooms as they had the characteristic bluish bruising on the stems.
Initially you couldn’t see them walking by I had to push the grass aside to see them and there they were.
They are very cool looking. I picked them, set them aside and tried to make a spore print for 30 minutes. I was thinking that if they had a purplish brown spore print then they definitely were.
I waited and looked around some more.
After 30 minutes I checked and there wasn’t any spore print yet, but I decided I was very confident that they were psilocybin mushrooms.
It was 5:23.
And I ate 3 little ones and waited. Then at 5:45 I ate the 2 bigger ones. And thought hopefully I won’t die ;-).
They taste much better fresh as this was the first time I had eaten them fresh.
I had previously eaten magic mushrooms dried only a few times before. Once about 10 years prior and a few other times in my early 20’s.
What were the effects like?
Not sure when exactly I felt the first effects. I hadn’t eaten that much that day – only some berries I had found and some pure dark chocolate without any sugar.
So maybe about an hour later I started noticing some things.
I had been looking exclusively in the grass and then I looked up and I noticed that the trees looked a little different.
They were more vivid and more alive looking. More 3-D like.
Then there was that sort of wave or two of the mushrooms kicking in and a fear that came over me or I am not sure how to describe what came over me. It might have been a fear that I ate the wrong mushroom and that I would die, but I just told myself to relax and that I would be o.k.
And I was.
I was reminded of a book I read recently by Albert Hoffman, the guy who discovered LSD and also studied “psilocybin” mushrooms. One of the things he said was that mushrooms were a little “darker” than LSD.
I was definitely spooked for a bit.
It’s hard to describe the feeling, but it was kinda sudden and intense. Time seemed to slow down. I am pretty introspective and I guess the mushrooms bring up some emotional things. One of the ways they are being used is in therapy.
And that’s part of the reason I wanted to use them – to help figure some things out.
Anyways…
I spent the next few hours walking about the small area talking to myself, thinking about things and looking for more mushrooms. Talking to myself isn’t actually that bizarre as I do it often when I walk which to some might seem weird, but hey we are all always talking to ourselves, just usually it’s going on silently.
This massive slug blew me away – about twice the length of my finger
Some little things became more challenging and scary. There were some areas that were covered in prickers that really looked challenging. Everything slowed down.
I was hyper vigilant about poison oak, but there was none.
It was really great.
I found this sort of hidden path that was running alongside the main path and started to walk down it. It was getting cold and dark out.
The trees looked so cool although you can’t really tell in that shaky picture. I felt pretty grateful and happy. Then I saw this massive slug. it was like 8 inches long!
Did I hallucinate a friend asked that I saw later at the grocery store?
Not really.
But maybe a little as I said things looked more vivid and watching the trees move was cool and another thing I noticed was that somethings like plants and leaves on the ground took on a bluish kind of color like the mushrooms had!
It was like the mushrooms not only bruise blue, but colored me blue too :-).
I mean it could have been the light or it could have been the mushrooms!
I walked very slowly back towards the grocery store. I also saw this family of raccoons digging in the playground trash.
They were really cute.
I got to the store before they closed and home walking the whole way after 10:30 or so.
I hadn’t eaten much like I said earlier, but I just kept telling myself that I would be fine. When I got home music sounded really great!
Then finally I ate and went to bed late. I think all that cocoa kept me up though. The mushrooms didn’t leave any hangover or bad effect like alcohol or the heaviness that marijuana does.
It was a great experience and I look forward towards finding them again.
Studies
Here’s video about those John Hopkins studies.
Another interesting thing that Jordan Peterson talks about is serotonin and how a lack of that can really bring you down. And not just figuratively, but literally like it can make you slouch like the defeated lobsters in his book.
Psychedelic drugs like mescaline (from a cactus), LSD, DMT and psilocybin mushrooms primarily stimulate the serotonin pathway in your brain and not the dopamine pathway like cocaine or heroin do which are addictive drugs.
When is the best time to take an online TEFL course? This is a question that I don’t actually see people ask often or consider. Most people take courses whether they are online or onsite BEFORE they start.
But is this actually the best time?
Well, it improves your resume as it gives you a qualification, but as far as the training goes I don’t think it is for a couple of reasons.
The first reason why is because you haven’t started teaching yet and you have nothing to work with or compare it to. At this point teaching is still an abstract concept.
The second reason why is that there’s going to be a gap in between the time when you complete the course and when you start your job. So that is not going to help your memory of the course material.
So when is the best time to take an online TEFL course?
Now contrary to popular belief which is you take a course before you start teaching I would say that if you are going to take a course just one time then I would take it after you start.
Why?
Because you will have context. The material will seem less abstract to you. It will probably be more helpful too because you will remember more of it.
But won’t my job be difficult if I don’t know what to do on the first day?
Sure, but I think it’s going to be a bit difficult either way. Ideally you should take a course before you start and then after again for review. Research shows that repetition and spaced intervals between studying leads to better memory and retention.
I don’t think your first week or so will be that easy regardless so yes, taking it before should help, but I think it will be much more helpful if you start after you start your job for the reasons mentioned above.
In my experience teaching in Asia: China, Korea, and Taiwan I would say that most schools there will accept online TEFL courses, however it does depend on the school.
The schools that don’t accept online courses are often more prestigious or in places like Europe or the middle east. Most first time teachers do not get into these schools anyways unless they have experience.
So despite what you might have heard having an in-class course is not going to make a big or any difference in your chances of getting a job or making more money. Having TEFL experience matters more.
The course is just a start.
Are online TEFL courses any good? Well, that is going to depend on the course as all online courses are not created equally. What you take away from a course or what you learn is going to depend on the course and you.
Is an online TEFL course for you?
Are you a self-directed learner?
Are you self disciplined?
Are you independent or introverted?
Do you want to control the pace?
Are you planning to teach abroad for just 1-2 years?
If your answers are mostly yes to those questions then an online TEFL course may be better for you compared to an onsite TEFL course.
Now let’s talk about the training.
Here’s why most online TEFL courses are not good enough
How do online TEFL courses work? Well, it depends on the course, but for a lower quality one you read passages and then take quizzes or answer multiple choice questions. Now you can learn by reading, but if you have no visual element to it you’re going to have an awfully hard time remembering what you are studying.
Studies show that people tend to only read 20-28% of a page. So if you only read that much then how much do you think you will remember?
If you don’t remember what you studied in a course then how well do you think you will teach?
You need a visual to learn how to teach. For me the best way to learn how to teach was by watching other teachers. Now you can do that in a classroom or you can do it online with video.
A higher quality course is going to use a lot of instructional videos because studies show that people learn better with video compared to text.
It’s also more interesting.
You may have read that online courses are useless or worthless, but the people who say those things typically fall into a few groups:
They never took an online course and are just repeating what others say
If you read r/tefl on Reddit you will soon find out that many people there are pro-CELTA. CELTA is supposed to be a good course, but it’s not for everyone especially those who are not in it for the long run, don’t teach adults, don’t want to cram, or pay $2000.
On the other end of the spectrum on Reddit are those that recommend taking the cheapest online TEFL you can get so you can “check the box”.
These people are only focused on appearances and getting the job, but getting a job is just the beginning.
A cheap course is cheap for a reason. You tend to get what you pay for. As mentioned above you probably won’t get instructional videos, feedback or a quality course.
Going with a low quality/cheap course will likely continue the circle of people saying online courses are worthless. So yeah they are worthless if you take the wrong course just to get a job (“check the box”) and you don’t learn.
I think the biggest factor for a successful experience with an online course is to have a visual. You should watch other teachers teach the same or similar students as you are going to teach. If you teach kids then you need to watch other teachers teach kids.
If you teach adults then some stuff will transfer to kids, but not all and vice versa.
This is a resume of my art shows. It needs an update^^. It’s a little dated, but I wanted to put it somewhere before it vanishes.
I worked as an artist creating various pieces and projects for display in gallery exhibitions, juried exhibitions, magazine and newspaper publications.
This post will point out some of the reviews on ESLinsider and offer additional input on some of those attacks left by troll competitors.
ESLinsider is my site. I started working on its videos in 2009. And it’s been online since 2011. It offers activity based teacher training especially focused on teaching in East Asia where I taught.
I’d like to point out that unlike many other courses ESLinsider actually has a lot of “reviews” if you want to call them that on its how-to videos on Youtube. And those videos are used in ESLinsider’s courses.
Take a look.
Here’s a comment from one of the videos:
“I’m a new teacher and these videos really saved my hide (they still do) and my students like these activities a lot. I would like to thank you…” – Luiz Felipe
A comment on the video above.
Why I don’t use 3rd party TEFL review sites
The short answer is: I don’t like middlemen.
If you are searching for reviews on ESLinsider’s courses then I’ll assume that you are also checking out other companies too and you have probably been to some 3rd party review sites like:
gobroad.com
teflcoursereview.com
gooverseas.com
They make money by referral links and from advertising from the courses on their site.
You have to create an account there before people can leave reviews on your course.
I did initially create an account with either the goabroad or the gooverseas site (can’t remember which one as they look the same to me) a few years ago, but changed my mind and had it deleted for a few different reasons.
If I wanted a better position on their site and to be found there then I had to pay money.
Those sites are not “unbiased” like some say.
So instead of paying them money and helping their site grow I decided to put the review software on my own site instead.
ESLinsider is small and more like a mom and pop shop
I try to be transparent vs. not which is I think like most of the TEFL course industry especially online.
I didn’t originally design ESLinsider to be a course. Back in 2011 it started with how-to videos and an ebook.
I didn’t like the TEFL/TESOL course industry because of all the lies. The courses came later. It’s more popular as a resource (its videos) for current teachers.
I have no interest in being another look alike TEFL course. Are all the courses out there starting to look and sound the same to you?
I have taken some atypical stances not trying to fit in with what I don’t believe in. For example, accreditation and TEFL course “hours“. When it comes to online courses those hours mean nothing.
I completed a so called “120 hour” online TEFL course on Groupon in 8 hours, not cause I needed it, but because I wanted to see what I would get.
Until about 2016-17 I did name my courses with “hours”, but it never sat well with my conscience and then as the course developed more I changed it…
George has left a few reviews and his first one was left 4 years ago.
I don’t follow “best business practices” in some sense and I do criticize the TEFL course industry (some of my so-called competitors), because this is ESLinsider NOTblue pill TEFL.
So…
I try to keep it simple and practical minus the hype and lies.
It’s not popular maybe because I didn’t do what other people did, but on the plus side I think you’ll find it to be more personable.
And one of my favorite quotes by Seth Godin was…
Regardless of how you measure ‘best’ (elegance, deluxeness, impact, profitability, ROI, meaningfulness, memorability), it’s almost never present in the thing that is the most popular.
All the reviews that are written on my site are written by people who have taken courses there. I also kept some testimonials (2012-2016) which started long before I set up the reviews on my site in 2016.
As of right now there are 30 (5 star) reviews on ESLinsider and 1 with just a 4 star rating, but no written review. I ask people if they can leave a review when they finish the course, however they aren’t obligated to.
There I do say that I may delete a review if they don’t use their name and email used in the course.
Why?
I say that to prevent possible trolls or evil competitors from writing a malicious fake review like some of the people below did.
Does ESLinsider have any bad reviews?
Well, to be honest there are a few that were written by people who used troll accounts.
They didn’t take a course with ESLinsider although one of them claimed to.
One troll claimed that I was selling diplomas, perhaps he saw this drawing I did and believed it.
Duh…
But if you search Google for the keywords “ESLinsider diploma” you won’t find any place where you can buy a diploma on my site.
If you search:
eslinsider reviews
You’ll see some negative pages that were written by the people below.
“Trusted” TEFL reviews?
There’s this other newer site out there that claims to be “trusted” who wrote a fake review of my site and attacked me on Quora, TEFL.net, etc. His sites are called “trusted” TEFL reviews and TEFL online pro (the winner of some fake award on that “trusted” site) and ACTEFLC his fake accreditation.
He owns the review site to write fake reviews and promote his other site.
Because if you do a search for reviews and my site then you will likely find stuff he has written to make me look bad.
Like this:
Or this.
Here’s a comment from the video above.
Aside from that…
Any critical reviews?
Like not from trolls???
Yeah, 1,000 dislikes on the videos in the pic above which is like 11% of the people who watched my videos and pushed either the like or dislike button.
And here’s a critical email I got once about the course:
“I understand the level of difficulty between the courses. However, in the 20 hour course, when answering the questions, the answer could be easily seen in the text that was meant to be studied.
I would suggest more of a challenge where studying the context is mandatory to correctly answering the question. Not just searching for the match to the question.
That is my personal opinion. Other then that, the material was well put. Thank you.” –
Sarah Gilbertson
My thoughts on that are why should I make it intentionally more difficult to learn? I try to make it easy not hard. Some teachers make you want to work for no good reason.
Not me.
I intentionally broke up all of the text into mostly small bits because that’s a better way to learn AND I put the answer right there as I didn’t think hiding the answer would help.
“Open book open note ALL THE TIME. There is zero value in memorizing anything ever again. Anything worth memorizing is worth looking up.” – Seth Godin
“Not Well-Known, Yet Has Invaluable Information and Advice From a Great Teacher…
At first I was hesitant to take Ian’s Advanced Course, since there didn’t seem to be much information about it online. However, I can now say with full confidence that Ian has put together a masterclass catalog of teaching materials, each presented in a clear and logical way, with a great website to re-find anything if needed. The course pages seem to be frequently updated and Ian is incredibly quick to respond to submitted assignments or messages.
Direct communication with Ian is a huge plus. There are a few assignments to submit (Lesson Plans, mainly) and Ian gave me very detailed and meaningful feedback on every one. – Kyle P.
It kinda sounds like Russian to me, but I don’t speak Russian so that is not saying much. This is one of the later creative videos that I made with a little beatboxing, my computer and my turntables.
It’s hard to get there and getting there is the battle. Actually it’s not that the place you want to go to is worse, but the difficult part is getting there or making it through “The Dip” as Seth Godin says.
It happens everyday and there are a lot of ways that it manifests itself.
In my experience it’s hard to:
to work out.
to get to jiu-jitsu class.
to start a new project (video, art, article, etc.)
to change your habits.
to get ready for work.
to move.
to change.
to start anything new.
But really in so many cases it’s just starting. It’s not the actually thing. The hard part is just transitioning from where you are now to where you want to go.
And so much of it is in your head.
For the last 8 days or so I have been working on this video. And it started with inertia. There was a sort of dread and this ughh feeling cause I knew the first part of creating it would be boring.
But at some point you get over the hump and it becomes more fun.
I also mention at the end of the video getting out of your comfort zone. I show a picture that I got from Wikipedia. It shows 3 circles within one another.
At the center you have your comfort zone
Surrounding your comfort zone is the optimal performance zone
