Central Asian derring-do and a re-introduction
We reflect on 18 months of Substacking
A reminder and re-introduction
This is a significantly revised and refreshed update of my original Welcome post from July 2023. If you have 5 minutes to waste kill spare…knock yourselves out.
When I started this Substack 18 months ago, I had a rough plan and a direction I wanted to go in.
Fret not, loyal readers. Nothing is really changing.
We’re merely taking a different approach. Consider this a rebranding and a refresh.
I’ve now got a lovely, eclectic mix of readers – some of you have been with me from the start of my pre-Substack blogging days, some of you are my students or colleagues, and unfortunately, a couple of you are family members I can’t shake off.1
Many of you have joined this little party in the past few months. I’m glad to have all these new faces along for the fun. A new and growing audience presents a healthy and exciting fresh challenge.
Where my writing days all began
After I arrived in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in January 2009 I started my first blog. Friends had been telling me that I should start writing more about my travels and experiences, alongside my teaching adventures. I duly obliged.
Who was my target audience?
It was aimed at a handful of friends and everyone that I was either too lazy or couldn’t find the time to keep in touch with – shame on me. But when you’re abroad in a place like Bishkek…
I cringe when I think of the places I went to write and send emails (and speculate on the stock market at 3am local time in some local dive internet cafe). I’d write posts in my flat, save them to a hard floppy disk (google that, Gen A), no doubt picking up loads of viruses. Unlike my colleagues, however, I at least limited my risky viral behaviour to internet cafés. The Golden Bull [nightclub] wasn’t my thing.
Who am I kidding? One of my most popular posts was an epic encounter at Platinum that involved lots of broken glasses (not us, drunk Belarussians), sordid shenanigans, and me grabbing the balls of a bouncer after wagging my finger at his nose saying ‘no no no no’ in a teacher-telling-off-his-student voice, leading to my good pal Brian and I being bundled into a tiny room and threatened with castration by overly buff Kyrgyz security guards. Thankfully, the beautiful young Misha came to our rescue – he had the hots for me, but who was I to complain? He got us off without any problems.2
I’ll be dredging up some old stories from the past couple of decades and polishing them off here, including a retelling of ‘Soft-core porn in the back of an Uzbek taxi,’ by far my most popular piece from those days (don’t ask just yet – it’s coming).3
Another good story, this one from Uzbekistan: me, all alone in a sauna on a 45-degree July day, being turned into a human pretzel by a naked 16-year-old whose massage method involved literally walking all over me and twisting my limbs in ways I never thought possible. To be fair, it was one of the best massages of my life, so maybe he was onto something.4
When I left Bishkek in August 2009 and started training in the US as a high school social studies teacher, I thought that was the end of my teaching and fledgling writing career. What was I to write about now?
I found stuff, but it was more in the form of anthropological insights on local small-town New Hampshire university life. That’s a euphemism for ‘I insulted the locals in a patronising way and enjoyed the hell out of doing so.’
Once my student-teaching placement ended in May 2010, I set off on another adventure, backpacking around Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Poland. I was to start teaching at an International School in Tbilisi, Georgia in September 2010 and wanted to have one last adventure before my summer teaching job in the UK, before I got down to real, ‘proper’ teaching in the autumn.
That job fell through.
I was at a loose end in August 2010. I thought I was done teaching English. (From starting out in Prague with my teaching certification course in 2005, it was onto Lviv, Basque Country, and Latvia, before some time at home day trading in my pajamas – we’ll get to this – and then Kyrgyzstan.)
Evidently not. I returned to Ukraine at the end of August 2010 to teach English again, this time in Kyiv. This wasn’t the plan, but when do plans ever work out?
“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley, / An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, / For promis’d joy!”
Robert Burns
But at least this meant the resumption of my adventures, right?
That was some silver lining to it.
I had tried to separate business from pleasure in my blog. None of my students or colleagues knew about it. It wasn’t that I complained about work (though I did, and about so many other things), but I didn’t want to take any chances.
And then a colleague chanced upon it and didn’t take too kindly to some of my moaning and groaning about work. Me, moan and groan? Never!
I ditched that blog and started a new one exactly two years after my first and this time said, ‘to hell with it’, opening it up to everyone. No more secrets, no more things to hide, let’s make it open and honest.
In hindsight, it’s not that open and honest at all, especially in comparison to what I’m about to share in my next few post(s).
I highly recommend you DON’T go looking for my old blog(s). Trust me, it’s in your best interests. All the good stuff will be freshly repackaged here. Among the topics covered from 2009-2023:
Classroom tales (of course), especially where I insult my students (don’t worry, only the bad ones, who are 100% guaranteed not to be reading this – that’s why they’re bad)
Love and relationships, heavily inspired by Schopenhauer (what a grouch!)
Reflections on reading, writing and literature
Way too much nostalgia, including my days as a sports and music ‘journalist’, and mix tapes and the good ol’ days
Some ill-advised football/soccer analysis, and competing against my wife and cat in American football gambling - these are stories I will NOT be repeating
My amateur acting career
Lots of Ukraine stuff
More tales of derring-do from Central Asia
Parenting ‘advice’
Life lessons, including regrets, good v bad advice, terrible decisions, missed opportunities and lousy predictions
And much, much more.
Act now to get our Black Friday special of one year off the regular retail price of 19.99!
Best of all, I have plenty of untold tales, including the one I’ve hinted at endlessly to friends and family involving cracked ribs in a dodgy establishment in Riga where I never should’ve been, as well as my experience in a Nigerian prison. Fond memories, all things considered.
Some stories will offer valuable lessons and insights, both inside and outside the classroom, gleaned from years of reading, travelling, teaching, and interacting with people from all corners of the globe.
Believe me, I’ve had some…[mis]adventures. And these past couple of years have put me through the wringer and back and I’ve reached the end of my tether.
I won’t always do this, but:
Through the wringer: through a series of very difficult or unpleasant experiences
The end of your tether: being so worried, tired, and unhappy because of your problems that you feel you cannot cope
Which is why some stories, starting with my very next post, are going to be heavy and uncomfortable in parts. I’m about to share a lot of deep and personal stuff, but I promise you it will be a blast.
Let’s ruffle some feathers
There is a LOT of APPALLING advice out there, particularly with language learning – inaccurate language, shockingly bad pronunciation models and generally lousy tips. I can feel the rage coursing through my veins when I see some of the shit that’s getting promoted, especially on Instagram.
It pisses me off, to put it mildly, and I’m fed up. I’m ready to name and shame some people, I don’t care anymore.
Some of these accounts have thousands of followers. It pains me to think of the people consuming this crap, thinking, ‘Oh cool, I’m going to use this hackneyed phrase and talk like a robotic member of the Royal family! Oh, what a life-changing hack to not look at my phone in the first hour when I get up, wow, I’VE NEVER HEARD THAT BEFORE!!!'
The question is, can I do any better? Maybe, maybe not. But I’m confident I can. Let me know what does and doesn’t work. I LOVE feedback.
Challenge accepted – bring it on.
Reading rocks - not literally, of course
I have an ongoing literary existential crisis where I lie in bed at night – most nights – calculating my life expectancy, the number of books I average in a year and panicking when I realise there aren’t enough years to read everything I want.
BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING…yes, it has been pointed out to me repeatedly that Rory had the same agonising dilemma in Gilmore Girls, but I swear I came up with this first.5
I finally wrote my own book because my students had been asking me for more interesting and authentic stuff to read and I finally caved in and said, ‘Fine, I’ll write my own damn book!’ I tried my best to make it interesting. It’s authentic at least.
Though initially intended for language learners, it meandered and went off course and I ended up trying to appeal to everyone.
My philosophy and passion? Learning English naturally, not with grammar explanations and vocabulary lessons or learning apps (AI? Noooooooooo!!!) but through amusing personal stories and anecdotes, with as much wit, wisdom and insight as I can pack in. There are plenty of language learning tips sprinkled in here and there, but there should be something everyone can enjoy without being overwhelmed with learning advice. The goal is to enjoy the pure pleasure of reading itself.
Who wants gifts? I’ve got two for you!
My book was originally titled An Accidental Career, until a dear friend pointed out everyone has an accidental element to their careers. As Mike Tyson said: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”6
I wrote a ridiculously long autobiography to be published elsewhere but couldn’t cut it down to 6,000 words. I suck at editing. So I added it to the end as an epilogue.
For your reading pleasure, here it is, the 10,000-word nutshell version of how I ended up in Ukraine and left in February 2022. I was lucky: my daughter and I got out 10 days before the full-scale invasion. We ended up in Vienna in March and are still here.
If you’d like to read more about my life and how I got into teaching, my background, stories of failed relationships, regrets, and an ongoing identity crisis…Merry Christmas. (For those kind souls who have already bought my book - thanks! - and are feeling left out, email me for a separate gift. I’m serious, I have something for you too.)
A super fascinating Epilogue of where it all went Pete Tong for Daniel
I’ll also have a free ebook to share – fingers crossed – within the next couple of weeks for everybody. Yay!
Feedback!
Whoever you are and wherever you are, please use the comments below to share your thoughts on what you’d like to see more and less of in the New Year.
Check out my website for testimonials or to buy my book or to send me a prank email or see what I look like pre- and post- bushy beard. The image on the home page is another classic image from Kyrgyzstan, just after I’d consumed some horrid local tincture.
Arslanbob, Kyrgyzstan, May 2009
Hospitality upon our arrival midday. Vile vodka passed around in the same filthy glass, with a spring onion for a chaser. We had no choice.
Technically Arslanbob was a dry town. This fine gentleman and a couple of his friends greeted us at the bus station with this welcome drink. Otherwise, booze was hard to come by.
Brian and I went in search of some and stumbled upon this speakeasy:
We were welcomed inside and got what we came for. If memory serves, this couple were way younger than they looked. Life is tough in these parts.
If you cut me, I bleed sarcasm. It courses through my veins. I’m JOKING, for crying out loud.
Good heavens, pun very intended, are you kidding me? Any questions, language learners – don’t be shy to ask. That’s what I’m here for.
Sorry, it’s hard. That one just slipped out.
I swear to you, that was UNINTENDED!
In a related note, Lauren Graham (Lorelei) is one of the most underrated stunningly gorgeous actors. Maybe she’s not underrated though? It’s the holiday season, watch Bad Santa, she’s great in that.
To clarify, Mike Tyson is not the dear friend I’m referring to. He’s not even a friend. We’ve never even met.
#gilmoregirls4life
Hell of a hook for the next three posts. Hell. Of. A. Hook.