Lazy Bum? Teacher? Tour Director? Writer? Which Is It, Kate?

Can you believe that I’ve been a member of Steemit since August 2016 but I hadn't published a post until now? Seems I fit the ‘lazy bum’ description in the title, right?

But as with most things in life, the answer is far more complicated than that.

At the time, Steemit was just another one of those BSOs that I got excited about for a brief moment in time and then let sit idle because a new BSO came along.

You know what BSOs are, right? Just in case you don’t, a BSO is a ‘bright shiny object’ – an online product that you get excited about and then forget. Unfortunately, many of us spend money on those BSOs and then don’t take advantage of the investment.

Yes, that’s what I did. But thanks to @hopehuggs, Steemit got my attention again, and now I will follow through and post regularly on Steemit. I’ll be on a mission to prove my Steemit dedication to you, my readers, and to myself as well.

How Did My Journey Start?

I’m not going to bore you with my dysfunctional childhood. Most of us have been there and made it through.

What is far more interesting are the passions that have consumed me throughout my life, from the time I was younger than I can remember until this very day. I won’t keep you in suspense. My two passions are and have always been dogs and travel, each of equal importance to me.

You might have immediately thought that those two passions don’t go very well together. Very true! If I fulfilled my longing to have dogs, what would I do with them when I was out traveling for months at a time? After all, who could take better care of them than me?

What a puzzle! The thought of putting my dogs into a doggie hotel for one or two months while I hit the road was abhorrent.

The Solution Was Totally Unexpected

I fumbled around a lot trying to figure out what kind of lifestyle I wanted. I managed to go backpacking for five months before I got my first dogs. I loved it and wanted to do more backpacking, but ironically, it was on that trip that I fell in love with a particular breed.

So when I returned to the U.S., I had to satisfy my canine craving right away. I got a whippet and then another. That’s how international, long-term traveling ended for me – at least temporarily. No doggie hotels for my precious babies.

But then years later, I ended up with an ex-husband who was willing to take care of my dogs while I explored different parts of the world. (He and I ended up better friends than spouses.)

It seemed that my life was coming together in some ways. I had dogs and had someone who could take care of them while I traveled. But wait. That’s not the complete solution yet.

I hadn’t settled on a career yet but eventually decided that I wanted to become a psychotherapist. Back to school. I entered a graduate program in psychology.

But something else was brewing inside of me. I realized that traveling every once in a while would never be enough. I wanted to face the challenge of living and working overseas.

In the second year of my doctoral program, I felt a noose tightening around my neck. I saw my future all laid out. I would set up practice as a therapist and would need to stay in that spot for the rest of my life. I’d never be able to find out what living and working in another culture was like.

That noose just kept getting tighter and tighter. And then, a miracle happened. A three-month job in Indonesia to train local workers on computers came along.

How perfect! I could take leave of absence from school for one quarter and get this bug out of my system. Then I’d return to my graduate program and become a psychotherapist. My ex-husband agreed to take care of my two dogs for the three months.

That was more than 30 years ago. And guess what! I’m still living in Indonesia. Shortly after I left the U.S., both of my dogs crossed the rainbow bridge and went to doggie heaven. One had congenital heart problems and had already lived many more years than the veterinarians had predicted. The other died from Addison’s disease.

It was as if my wonderful dogs were giving me permission to stay away. So when that first job ended, I started teaching English as a foreign language and did that for 15 years. I’d been a Spanish teacher in the U.S. right out of college, so just transferred my language-teaching skills over.

Here's the Solution

As I settled into life as an English teacher in Indonesia, I brought three dogs into my home. But living in Indonesia has a major advantage for someone like me. It’s normal to have household helpers who live in the home with the family. And I’ve been very fortunate to have the same housekeeper for 25 years.

My housekeeper Sani became very knowledgeable about caring for dogs, so I never had to worry when I went off traveling to Nepal, Tibet, or wherever. I knew my doggies were in good hands. A perfect solution.

And Travel Continues

Eventually, I started looking for a new way to earn money. My search led me to becoming an international tour director for an upmarket American tour operator. Now we’re talking about a lifestyle that appealed to me. It wasn’t the kind of traveling that I enjoyed for myself, but I loved being on the move, leading tours for months at a time in China, Russia, Spain, France, and many other countries.

But if I had to choose between dogs and tour directing, dogs won out. After 18 years of tour directing, I rescued a seriously ill dog and decided that I needed to stay with her, so I gave up tour directing. I’d always been a writer, so it was easy to move into freelance writing.

So does that mean that I’m now a lazy bum as it says under my name on my Steemit page? Not yet. But I’m working toward that goal. Will I ever achieve it? Probably not.

Traveling vs Living Overseas

Would you like to know which is better – traveling or living overseas?

Of course, that depends on the person. But my answer is that living overseas is almost like continuous travel. Even though I’ve been in Indonesia more than 30 years, living here is still an adventure. It’s not routine and probably never will be.

Living here satisfies my urge to get to know a ‘foreign’ culture more than traveling here for several months ever would. Every time I venture out to run simple errands, I’m reminded of the challenges involved when living outside of your own culture, and I love it. I don’t want life to become routine. I want it to continue being an adventure.

The Adventure Called Steemit

You probably realize by now that I’ll be writing a lot about traveling and living as an expat. But I’ll venture into other topics as well – dogs (of course), writing, self help, and whatever fits the mood I’m in when I sit down to write.

I look forward to making lots of friends here on Steemit. A good place to start is #steemitpowerupph. What a journey! Don’t you just love technology?!