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Michael Allan Charles

Insurance

9/28/2015

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Thankfully, I never had any sickness or accident when I taught overseas, but you should be aware that insurance is part of your compensation package. Quite frankly, if you are teaching at a school that is not large, you may only get covered for accident insurance and that is so cheap is Asia it is hardly worth taking. 

I remember falling off of a motorcycle in Vietnam and scraping my leg. I went to the hospital, saw a doctor within five minutes, and she charged me something like $5.00. She prescribed some medicine and as walked to the pharmacy I was sure this was going to be the "big" cost. I was pleasantly surprised when  the medicine was about $2.00 so frankly accident insurance is not such a terrific benefit. 

However, I have heard horror stories of individuals who come and work overseas and have a heart attack or some other terrible tragedy within the first few days of arrival. This is not so surprising considering you are excited to be going, you are not eating or sleeping properly and the food is different. 

Most insurance policies will not cover you before the first  30 days and if your new employer is not sympathetic you are out of luck UNLESS

you get insurance coverage from North America before you leave. I always double covered myself with insurance both from the school and coverage from my home country ( Canada). I would do the same if I were you! 

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Hope I did not scare you off talking about insurance. You have scenes like this 365 days a year to say nothing about great students and new friends!
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World Wide Distribution

9/16/2015

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When I just checked out my sales figure for August, I was amazed at how much money I made, until I looked more closely and realized the number was in Indian Rupees. Although little money in Canadian dollars, it was huge in my eyes. Imagine what a buzz I felt  to know that people in India actually bought my book, hopefully to read. With the Internet today, it does not take long to get world wide distribution and if your book is any good no reason why it should not be a world wide best seller in the English speaking world. Who could have dreamed that I would have hard copy in the largest book store in Asia, and now people in India are buying the book online. I am just tickled pink and  brown. ( having a broken ankle just adds to the colour, most blue)
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I stared to think about it a bit and realized things on a couple of levels. Hey, the book is a love story, why shouldn't people all over the English speaking world enjoy the book? Although I am from North America, I spent many years working in Asia and I like to think that I have at least a small feel for how Asians see the world. In many ways, love is universal and my themes of love and loss are quite universal and even though the setting is in  Myanmar, the themes are the same...redemption, friendship and fulfillment. Thank you to the Indians who bought the book and I hope you do enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 


On a deeper lever, in this instance I can see how the Internet has changed our world. Imagine a lone, solitary individual, me, writing a book in my office over a number of months, if not years and having the ability in 2015 to actually get people all over the world downloading ( and hopefully reading) the book. I know I have heard from Vietnamese, Thais, Burmese and now Indians who have actually put good money ( or plastic) on the table to read the book. What a wonderful feeling for me, the author and so illustrative of how the world has changed so dramatically in the last ten years or so. 


Even this blog was not possible just a little while ago. According to the statistics from weebly, hundreds of people are following this blog and I hope finding it useful, especially in they want to teach in Asia. I have no idea how they get to the blog but they do. 


Did I mention a nephew of mine who wanted to teach overseas who wrote me in Thailand and told me how useful the blog was to him? Could this have happened in the past?
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If you are one of the few readers of this site who have not read the book yet, please press the button above, put some plastic on the table and read the book. Then let me know how you liked it. Since I stopped writing this blog at he beginning of the summer many of you have written and asked me to continue to write so I will. 
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I broke my ankle a few weeks so will not be working in Asia for a while, so I will start to give tips again about how to get a job in Asia.  Just  me know where your interests lie in terms of information you need to know. I look forward to hearing from you either after you have read the book or how to get a job in Asia!

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    Michael Allan Charles is the first time author of It All Started In Mandalay

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