All posts filed under: California

Why I decided to teach English for $7 per hour

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Clue: it wasn’t for the money. I have always wanted to get an English teaching certificate and dip my toe further into the field of ESL. As a regular if infrequent German language tutor since the mid- 90’s and an occasional English language instructor during a spell of time when we lived in Padova in Italy I always wondered if I was missing out by not having taken my TEFL certificate. I always question if completing a Celta course wouldn’t improve my opportunities somehow. Well, a certificate, no certificate, can make anyone a perfect person. No matter what theories and practices you learn a good portion of success will be based on personality. But as I mentioned a while ago: I eventually signed up to a TEFL course when I realised that I had spending more hours looking at courses, over a period of 15 years, than it would have taken to complete one. I may be exaggerating but you get the idea: Don’t think about it for too long because you might as well …

Part time Dog sitter in the San Francisco since 2014

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Just an extremely short note from me today. I just realised that I haven’t written anything since returning to San Francisco a month ago. I’ll share my first impressions of 2021 in San Francisco and of our new apartment soon but for now just a little promotional post. : We got 50% of our longterm petsitting clients through Rover. You can communicate with your sitters ahead of time, check references and arrange a meet-and-greet. I think the greater risk is when people hire dog walkers like they order pizza. Price is also an additional point that may determine the quality of service. I tagged Rover because as a sitter I have had predominately positive experiences. For home & pet owners I recommend that you are discerning and ideally not in too much of a rush to hire so that you can meet sitters / walkers in person and consider your options. Have a list of questions ready to ask and a good list of instructions for your pet’s needs. http://sit.rover.com/p2H3j < this is a referral …

Project German – American Citizenship / Projekt Deutsch – Amerikanische Staatsangehörigkeit

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Ahoi, ich bin die Birgit und ich lebe zweisprachig. Hey, my name is Birgit and I live a bilingual life. Ich wohne zur Zeit in Amerika aber fühle mich gleichzeitig Deutsch, das wird sich niemals ändern. Dennoch habe ich durch meine Beziehung auch eine starke Verbindung zu den Staaten. I currently live in America but I simultaneously identity as German and that won’t ever change. However through my relationship I have developed an important bond with the States.   Das Jahr eilt jetzt schon wieder so schnell voran. Es ist Mitte Februar und die Winterzeit sollte sich ja eigentlich super dazu eignen endlich wichtige Bürokratien in Angriff zu nehmen, aber irgendwie liegt noch immer alles unbearbeitet auf dem Tisch. The year is flying by faster than I can keep up with, a blink of an eye ago it was the beginning of January and now we are already passing the mid-February mark. You would think that winter is an excellent time to tackle important bureaucratic paperwork but somehow it remains untouched on the table. Die …

We are petsitting again

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After a several month long break from everything caused by an intrusive health issue that sent me to a Chinese Medicine Doctor while I waited to eventually to have surgery we are back! Petsitting was never really meant to be a career move, but here in San Francisco it really is a sort of low hanging fruit of income options when life allows the flexibility with regards to taking the time out to visit or stay with somebody else’s pets. We are starting to build up repeat clients, who will give us a call before asking anybody else to look after their pets. To get started with petsitting as a ‘side-hustle’ we recommend using Yahoo Groups, neighbourhood message boards & Rover. Build repeat clients over time. If you would like to start petsitting using the booking agent Rover then you can follow this link to become a petsitter: https://refer.rover.com/s/Birgit5 I will get a bonus from Rover if you sign up AND book your first petsitting appointment within 90 days of signing up. Do read about the …

Wildfires close to San Francisco : information resources (fire locations, air quality, health prevention tips)

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List of information sources about the California fires, air quality & preventative actions for your health.

The air quality in the Bay Area (San Francisco) and North Bay Area (Sonoma, Napa) today is in the red and deep red zone: When you open the article you can access several essential clickable links with useful information to government websites and health resources around the wildfires and the subsequent micro particle pollution.

Daring to embrace New Horizons

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My partner Jason and I have lived a peripatetic, nomadic life, straddling the far western coast of California and the West Coast of Great Britain. Growing the roots of our relationship in an ever changing plant pot. Our 8 year anniversary is coming up very soon. It will make exactly 8 years since our first kiss, under the grand finale of Venetian fireworks at the foot of one of the two famous columns on the even more famous St Marco Square. We could have no idea that from this one, unbelievably romantic moment so much happiness and struggle would emerge. Neither of us had any plans of spending 8 years in regular intercontinental movement, not spending one whole year in any one place. We only once managed to spend a completely uninterrupted 13 months together, for a seemingly endless number of years we survived long geographical breaks, the longest lasting 5 months, twice! (But then again, we also know of course we only had 8 total, so it can’t have been THAT many years.) We …

So very soon I will return to America!

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I can’t quite believe just HOW soon I will return to living in America! HOW did this happen? Remember back in the years before I met Jason? Back then I had just absolutely no interest in the Americas. And then whoosh, I got swept off my feet and piece by piece of me got slowly reeled in like a fish on a tasty worm-laden hook… I am also completely hooked on the books by Isabelle Allende, many of which taking place in the early days of discovering and establishing life in South & North America. So many stories of immigrants, so many courageous women in the pages of her books! And now, now I have a green card, now I am preparing to envision my life in America! I am still bewildered by it all. I know it’s been a slow and gradual process and maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, but I thought I’d just go visit, stay a little while, go back to Europe and that would be it. Little did I realise that …