Not Sexy

by Skald

One thing I've thought of writing about is my current experiment with building a freelance income. At the moment, I'm engaged in an effort to create my own freelance teaching income. My goal is to totally free myself from bosses, schools, and administrators.

Part of this strategy is to build both a face-to-face clientele and an online one. A solid base of online students would give me a highly flexible income. It would allow me to travel and/or move about the world while maintaining a steady money supply-- independently.

This is where my energies are currently focused. I know, its not terribly sexy. I'm not exploring a new country, or testing the far limits of simple living, or other "at the edge" endeavors.

But this project is very important. However much I enjoyed traveling, I have always had the specter of employment hanging over me. Eventually the money ran out and I was forced, like some sad beggar, to beg for work (ie. "apply for a job"). This has always nagged at me, despite success at reducing the hours and days I needed to be a wage slave.

Economic freedom is vital. It really doesn't matter what form this takes. It might be a standard business (though this is far too anchored for my tastes). It might be a very simple cottage industry, such as fashioning beaded jewelry and selling it at festivals. Ambitious or modest, settled or nomadic, to live free it is absolutely essential to be one's own economic master.

And so, I am currently engaged in the less-than-sexy, but vitally important experiment of building a freelance teaching income.

Since this constitutes the bulk of my current thoughts and experiments, I'll start sharing my ups, downs, strategies, and ideas on this topic here on Hobopoet.

I'll also look forward to future nomadic adventures- which will be independently funded!

A Pause

by Skald

As many readers have noticed, I've been taking an extended break from Hobopoet. My life is generally going well, and I've got a few interesting projects going on. Mostly these relate to my efforts to learn a language (Spanish) and teach one (English). These activities may (or may not) be interesting-- but I feel they don't really relate to the purpose and spirit of Hobopoet.

Likewise, while I continue to live cheaply in a small one room apartment in San Francisco.. and indulge in the usual Hobopoet experiments and activities.. I have already covered these ideas many many times. No use repeating them yet again.

I do not intend to quit Hobopoet altogether. However, I need some time to determine a new direction. After a while, my posts had become little more than rants, complaints, and emotional venting. That was nice for me psychologically, allowing me to release some stress-- but didn't fit the spirit of Hobopoet either.

And so I'll be taking some time to figure out where to go from here. While I do that, I hope that Matt and other contributors will take up the slack and continue with their excellent (but far too infrequent :) posts!

As our beloved CA governor say, "I'll be back"!

(And if the oh so fascinating world of foreign language learning excites you, come on over and check out Effortless Language Acquisition, a significantly less radical blog!)