Leahs Cafe

MG, whose blog I have silently read in the feed for a couple of months now, inspired me to write this post.

Growing up a nerd, I went to college majoring in nerdy subjects (math and physics). I graduated with a Bachelor degree and started teaching nerds. :-) I actually enjoyed these nerdy subjects, so I went back to school to do a Masters degree while teaching in a private college.

I was paid a stipend during my study and I get paid doing tutoring and teaching part time and later full-time in a private college. With all this newly found financial independence and the right travel companions, I did quite a few backpacking trips to a few Asian countries. A failed relationship, a traumatic experience with a mentally ill roommate and getting bored with the world of nerds and nuts, I quit my teaching job of 4 years and went to US the A.

I went there as an Au Pair and was just planning to stay for 3 months. But, I met a couple who have adopted a Chinese girl, they wanted me to teach them and a few other adopted parents Mandarin in exchange for money, free lodging and food. So, I extended my visa and stayed for another 9 months.

When I returned, I have decided to come back to my hometown because I felt guilty and wanted to redeem my absence in helping my family to take care of my bedridden grandmother. It was the right time to be back, the 1997 financial crisis forced the government to build more private universities for those sponsored students who previously would have sent to US, UK or Australia for tertiary education. The first private university in our history was started in my hometown in 1997. It paved the way for me to come back to teach right here in my hometown. I emailed my resume to the dean a week before I came home and started teaching engineering math with the university a week after I landed, that’s how desperate they were!

I met hubby in America and we kept in touch for a few years before we decided to end the long distance relationship and get married. We decided that he will come to live here. I have already taught for 4 years in the university, rather bored with my job and saw no future in a place that practice favoritism and has a quota system based on skin colors. In order to get tenure, I enrolled myself for a Permanent Head Damage but changed field to Education instead of science. The superiors and the university weren’t very supportive of that. Which prompted me to venture out to do something of my own.

We started an after school care and a tutoring center. The intention was that hubby would run the business and I continue to teach at the university until the business turned profitable. However, Murphy moved into our spare bedroom unexpectedly, he was not able to run the business all by himself and it didn’t help that he had to return to America for a couple of months to take care of his parents who suffered from cancer. I quit the job in the university prematurely, took over the business and ran it for the past three years. I took a Montessori course, and started a preschool when I took over the business. That was quite an experience. Suffice to say that I am not really the right material to run a business.

I started a blog in the beginning of this year to share about Montessori and accidentally acquired a Page Rank with that blog hosted on blogger without knowing anything about SEO. When I learned that I could make money with the blogs, I jumped on the opportunity. It has been a rewarding venture, monetary wise. With the money that I make from the first blog, I bought this domain and went dot com.

I have since sold the tutoring center, folded up the after school care and preschool. What remains is the “Spell to Write and Read” program that I am still teaching part time, three days a week. I volunteer at an after school care runs by an NGO for a few hours a week and my main income right now comes from blogging. It has been quite a long journey.

Ever since I folded up the preschool, I have taken this blogging a little more seriously. I spent a few hours a day blogging for money and actually making enough to quit my part time teaching if I want to. At the moment, blogging is a job. Since we have two spare bedrooms, I am going to setup one of them as home office. It takes discipline to stay on the chair instead wondering to the kitchen to look for something to eat every few minutes. :-)

I consider myself a small fly blogger and don’t really know much about search engine optimization or generating traffics. But, I am a quick learner and a fast adapter. This is a nice change that allows me to stay home when we do start a family hopefully in near future. I don’t know what future holds, for the time being, I am happy doing what I am doing!