No job, no job, no job...

*sob* still no word on the job front, so this will be my fourth Christmas in a row where I have spent the holiday depressed and anxious. Last year I was wondering about Tasmania. The year before I think it was a job in Scotland. The year before it was a job ANYWHERE (I'd only been back in Noobah a year and hadn't yet realised that after a while, you get numb to the pain of being back here).

I have started to hate the holiday period. The hot weather makes me miserable and short tempered. Being miserable makes me eat. Eating makes me fat. Being fat makes me miserable AND irritated. I shout and rant and snap at my daughter but really I am angry at myself - FOR STILL BEING IN THIS SHITHOLE! For letting ANOTHER BLOODY YEAR GO BY.

I think the fact it is summer (a season I detest in this country) and the new year is coming and my birthday only a few short weeks after that...well, it all adds to the general gloomy atmosphere. Another Christmas here means another one NOT spent in Scotland. Another Hogmanay missed. Another year closer to 30 and still no closer to being back home.

I feel wretched.

There were a few jobs on the horizon and had I any sense and actually REMEMBERED what I get like during this festive season I may have signed myself up simply to escape this misery. Instead I am stuck to the computer, sweltering in the combined summer and electrical heat, plonking my daughter in front of endless streams of crappy Christmas television and searching the job pages in vain.

And isn't it strange how all the ghosts of job hunts past come back to haunt me when I get down and desperate? I've thought about New Zealand, I go back to the Tasmanian idea, then I think again of the northern NSW coast...and without fail I always end up on the job board of some Scottish council - just to check.

And every year I think that I cannot go through much more of this. I cannot stay here any longer...I might die. I cannot get any older here. How many more years do I want to tread water in this backwater country? How many years do I want to have to look back on and lament as WASTED?

Yet here I am again.

Oh crummy crum CRUMBO

ARIEGHOSEIGHGGHGHHH!

I am a numpty!

Numpty (num-p-tee) Dialect, chiefly Scot. ~ n. 1. a bumbling fool; One who is intellectually challenged ("no' the fu' shillin'"). 2. widely known in Scotland as an MSP (Member of Scottish Parliament) [as in "Thae numpties couldnae organise a piss up in a brewery."]

Just got off the phone from an interview for a literacy tutor position in Cape York - that's right, waaaay up north where it's hot all year round...hardly my favourite climatic conditions but the opportunity is a one-off. I've even had to put my school in China off for a week because I want to have this chance. The program is highly successful at rapidly improving the reading level of students who are struggling with literacy. They even offer training in Sydney for a week at the start of January before a 6 month deployment to Cape York...

Buuuuut...at the end of the interview (which actually went well - usually I am terrible at phone interviews - especially the international kind but more on that another day) for some wildly inexplicable reason I TOLD HER I HAD A 3 YEAR OLD! @?!*# Why oh why oh why would I do that? It wasn't planned AT ALL. I haven't mentioned my poor wee girl in an interview for a year: not after my parent status cost me not one but TWO brilliant teacher recruiting jobs earlier in the year. The first one was also a phone interview and I had not intended to mention Miss M, but unfortunately I kept talking about "we" and "us". When she asked who else I travelled with, I would've been better off telling her I was a nutter and liked to talk about myself in the 3rd person, but instead I confessed. She practically hung up on me.

Discriminating on the grounds of being a one parent family or having a child is not allowed, of course, but that's even MORE reason to stay mum until being offered the position. I don't like to be underhand but I prefer to be the one to decide whether or not I will handle a position, or a location, rather than have the decision made by somebody who doesn't know me or who maybe doesn't have children at all!

I honestly have no idea why I said it. Talk about shooting oneself in the foot. Talk about self-destruction...argh! It was like some imp was pulling the words out of my mouth - I started saying it before I even realised what I was saying. I tried to stop but I'd gone too far to backtrack without sounding like I was covering up a terminal illness or a little bit of crazy.

>sigh<

So now we have to wait. This is probably my least favourite part of the job process. Applications are draining and time consuming, waiting to be contacted for interview is nail biting but at least you've not had your hopes raised too high yet. Preparing for interview is stressful but the waiting afterwards is dreadful.

Especially when you may have shot yourself in the foot.

Holy mother of God

I hate cockroaches.

I hate cockroaches.

Jaysus I can barely even get my fingers moving to type...

As soon as it starts warming up in Queensland, these filthy, repulsive, devil-bidden bugs start crawling out of the pits of hell and up our walls...

Not only that, but (for the unitiated), Queensland cockroaches @*!?%# fly...big fluttery, paper scratchy WINGS.

I hate them.

I am almost reduced to tears just typing this, but I have to get it out. We had one in our house the other morning. It was dead (well, lying on it's back by the bathroom door and giving every appearance of being lifeless) but it still managed to wrest a scream from the depths of my soul and turn my legs to jelly.

I am fairly sure I have a cockroach phobia. I have an aversion to all flying insects and most creepy crawlies but the one that reduces me to tears and hysteria like no other is this guy. They are simply gruesome - the murky brown colour, the crunchy shell, the spiky legs, the looooong waving antenna...simply the way they move around the room...and the way they FLY. Why oh why, God? Why do they have to FLY?

Just before my 5th birthday, my first brother was born. It was a hot December morning and somehow I had managed to get him out of his cot without my parents intervening and had take him into the lounge room for a nurse. I was sitting on the edge of the brown couch when I felt something on my leg. Looking down I saw a gruesome beast making it's way up my leg. All I recall after that is my dad coming out (probably in response to my screams) and letting go of my newborn brother.

On another balmy Queensland evening my extended family were out at a resort in Surfers Paradise. Having stuffed ourselves senseless at the buffet the kids and uncles were wandering through the resort pool and gardens. The moment is burned in my memory and I recall that I was wearing my puffy blue and white polka dotted "Shirley Temple" dress. I felt something at my throat. It felt like a scratchy leaf. I reached a hand up to flick it away and instead my hand closed around a flubbering fluttery bloody giant of a cockroach. I screamed, of course.

As her four children started to get older my Mum decided to enclose a section of verandah to create an extra bedroom. It was properly constructed (walls, not curtains) but for some reason the bugs simply refused to relinquish what had previously been open air verandah. On a number of occasions I woke up with something crawling on me. Flicking on the fluro would reveal the hideous brown nighttime visitor. I recall one night that I woke up to a sound and when I switched on the light discovered a cockroach was not even ON me yet - I'd become so paranoid that I could hear the tiny scritch scratch of their spiky feet on the wall.

Since then I've had various other close encounters but I believe these were the ones to really concrete the phobia into my psyche. Whilst at uni I used to phone my old flatmate (Kim) to come over to my new place to remove cockroaches. She'd grown up in PNG so was braver than I - I who would be reduced to a shaking, clammy, sweating mess at the mere THOUGHT that I might have glanced one out of the corner of my eye...

Oh, I had another episode when I lived in one of the last dodgy little duplexes in Mermaid Beach (off Hedges Ave aka Millionaires Row). The screen door had been taken away and the Giant Winged Variety used to make their way in and get comfy. The night before I was due to start work in my first ever REAL teaching job, one flew into my room as I sat up preparing. Now, technically these beasts are not supposed to like the light but this fella was quite keen. I phoned my Mum (she was 2 hours away, it was midnight and NO she would not be coming to kill it) and in the end had to resort to sleeping in the 2nd bedroom (this was before I had a flatmate) which had only an old stinking, double ensemble left over from the previous tenant and a newspaper in it. I squashed the newspaper into every crack and crevice, laid some out on the bed, curled up on top and had a fitful sleep. I was also late to my first day at work.

My fear of the beasts is all consuming. I lose all sense of reason and rationality. From about mid-thigh down I lose feeling. I taste vomit. My hands shake and my palms sweat. There have only been a few (VERY few) rare occasions on which I have not had this physical reaction to a roach sighting and nearly all of those involved me having something to drink first. Last summer one flew in and I ran straight out the door, leaving my 2 year old to defend herself. I could not bring myself to go back into the house.

In Scotland I discovered something magical (and indeed, this may be the primary reason for my enduring love for the bonnie northern land). THERE ARE NO COCKROACHES IN SCOTLAND!!! Okay, so maybe there are some of the pale wee German variety, but those I can handle. It's the big brown winged beasts that send shivers down my spine.

It took about 6 months over there but I finally freed myself from the compulsive habit of entering a room/switching on a light and automatically checking the ceiling, cornice, every corner, edging and floor before entering. I didn't have to throw back my covers before hopping into bed. I could leave my window open WITHOUT A SCREEN!

And now I'm thinking about going back to Scotland via Asia and Europe. I had spoken to a friend who spent time in various places in Asia and she reckoned the roaches weren't that bad, and on this I have put my trust throughout the TESOL journey. Until my Mum started laughing at me yesterday, thinking about me taking on the roaches of Asia. So I sat down and googled, and sure enough, Mum is right. Not only do they have filthy flying bat-like roaches, they even have the German ones. They fly in, they come out of drains...they are in restaurants, in garbage...

My worse nightmare would be to survive the nuclear holocaust - and be the only human survivor...because there would be nobody to call to come kill the critters!

Beast shown is actual size - AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Random Scottish band has the answer

Alright, so I don't know why but somehow I expected finding a job in Asia was going to be fairly straightforward. Sure - there were extra issues such as making sure schools were not dodgy and trying not to head into locations with significant malaria risks or active civil war, but everything I read pointed to the plethora of jobs available, that someone with a B. Ed would be able to pick and choose, that I'd be fighting them off...

Well, in that sense I am fighting them off a wee bit, but that's because none of the jobs I'm being offered seem to FIT.

I don't know why I am surprised. This is the story of my life. Nothing goes according to plan. Nothing fits. Nothing that I actually, specifically HOPE or PLAN for ever seems to come to fruition. Remember that Midas story? Yeah, well at least he had things around him turning to gold. Everything I touch seems to turn to shit. Not that I want that to be my mantra or the motto over my life. Oh no. I don't ACCEPT that everything I start will fail - hell no! It makes me even more determined to succeed! So out I go, again and again, doing the same bloody...

Hang on a minute. Maybe it's BECAUSE I'm doing the same bloody thing?

No, no I'm not. At first I tried to go to Scotland. Then I tried to go to England. I tried every other country in Europe. I investigated Canada. Finally I started looking into the rest of Australia - I tried WA, Tasmania, even went to the NT. New Zealand cropped up from time to time (and again recently) and if I am honest, Scotland has been a constant throughout but has simply faded into the background at times. I started looking at ELT in Europe and now it is Asia.

Okay, so I am trying to do the same thing - get out of this arse of a town, but at least my method is changing! I've looked at studying, I've looked at teaching, I've tried other jobs, I've looked at running a business...Every river I try to cross, every hill I try to climb, every ocean I try to swim, every road I try to find...

Dammit just lost half an hour watching Runrig on youtube! >sigh<> I can't help it. I try not to listen to them, try to avoid any reference to the place because each time I think about it, it breaks my heart again. It kills me not to be there, missing day after day, year after year, the people going about their business, the weather changing...

This is definitely the long way round. I do wonder if I am crazy, thinking that I could possibly be so bold as to believe there was a place for me over there. Miss M is sorted - she's half Scottish so technically has rights. I just have a bunch of ancestors who turned their backs on the place and came...HERE.

Nice move, guys.

Sometimes I do start wondering why I don't give up. Forget about it. The place ain't that great anyway. It rains all the time. Sometimes it's grey for months at a time. There are more wankers per head of population than possibly anywhere, immigration don't want me, Miss M's dad lives there (this is probably the biggest deterrent, damn him) ... and it is just so bloody DIFFICULT to get there. All the hours of my life I have wasted and we are still no closer. And now we are going to go and spend 2 or 3 years traipsing around the earth to try in a sense to come in the back door - and who's to say we won't face a big boot for all our trouble?

It doesn't matter how I reason with myself. The hope won't let go.

Runrig ... again:

like shadows on the wall

you come and you go

through the streets

and the rain that falls down

on our sin

no more good-byes

forever this way

whenever the greatest flame in the world

starts burning

this is our life, and our time

and nothing, is ever going to break us

now we're on our own

always in your eyes

a waking of souls

we gaze out on the road

that brought us up

to this place

the signposts never change

we'll go where they lead

whenever the day to break us comes

we'll not give in

this is our life, and our time

and nothing, is ever going to break us

now we're on our own

this is our place

in our lives

and no one

can ever change this moment

or pull this mountain to the ground

*@!?&*@

Just typed a whole bloody post and suddenly it highlighted itself and promptly disappeared. FFS! As if I'm not p*ssed off enough at the moment without adding to my annoyance - but of course, that is PRECISELY what the Universe prefers to do - wait until we are sweltering in 600 degree heat as this stupid country's stupid summer kicks in, throw in a teacher recruiter who has taken a dislike to me (actually I don't think she ever had any 'like') and a million jobs but once again the ones I am not fussed on are the ones who want me and the jobs I am really keen on are proving elusive...

I think I've blogged already about my recruiter - who wouldn't respond to any of my requests to be put forward for jobs until I contacted another recruiter to ask if there was a problem? Anyway...as soon as I did that she promptly zinged to attention and a dozen interviews were lined up. Then came the realisation that hobnobbing at expat schools would demand at LEAST 2 years of my time. At this point this is not what we want to do. Perhaps in 6 months I will have discovered that we love Asia and want to stay longer etc etc but right now...NO.

So I'm in the pile on the floor again...

Until a brilliant job came through for a school in Japan looking for an early years teacher for only 6 months! Fantastic! But that was a week ago and still no response from them. I found the school online and I am sorely tempted to email them directly as there is something about recruiters. I had another group (workforce on tap or something like that, randomnly based in Bendigo, Victoria) who advertised for ESL teachers. As they were offering 6 month positions I emailed them for more info (there was very little in the ad) and the guy told me they didn't have any but I could ask all the questions I liked of the school when I submitted my CV and they phoned me. I don't like submitting my CV and personal details before I have any info but 6 month contracts are rare, so I did it. Again - no response! What the hell is going on???

The only school that WILL get back to me is in China. Although I am satisfied they aren't dodgy, they are only offering 10000RMB a month - about half what international schools in China were offering me. I kept putting the 6 month contract idea to them but they've ignored it - not only that, they told me they were really looking for someone to stay 18 months. For the love of God, why would I do that when I just gave up the chance to work an 18 month contract at an expat school for 3 times the money and an awesome package???

Which makes me wonder: why did I pass up that school? I didn't want to sign up for 18 months. I can understand schools wanting a longer commitment but surely it can't be that unusual for teachers to want to experience life over there first before committing to long term? And it's not like 6 month contracts are unheard of in western school systems - far from it!

China job has also informed me of their working hours, which are phenomenally high (for teaching). 40 contact hours per week, no planning or prep time (this is supposed to be done while children are sleeping!) for 10000 RMB. One of my hesitations for expat schools was the high demands on time, but at least they stuck to a regular 9 - 3 school day - none of this 8am starting.

In the absence of Japan job getting back to me (which is not a good sign, I'm sure, as other schools got back to me within a day or 2), I'm beginning to wonder if grabbing any old job at a language school might be a better option...

Oh, and I also had a call from a job working with Indigenous kids in remoter parts of Australia wanting to interview. So far I've left a couple of messages but not heard back...

I have a killer headache and I don't know if it's the heat or the stress!

I just want:
a great school: smaller size, flexible, helpful, younger kids,
decent accommodation
enough wages to save a little bit
helpful other staff and friendly kids
short term (at least at first!)

fingers crossed...

Asia

I have never considered going to Asia.

I have cousins who travel there a lot and a few friends and people I met whilst backpacking Europe who love the place. I have friends who grew up there and some who have worked there. When I worked at Movieworld on the Gold Coast during uni I spent quite a few shifts in the infamous ITG (International Tour Groups restaurant). It was more of a wild, chaotic feeding hall than a restaurant. To move the diners along they would drag Wile E Coyote or Tweety or Bugs round to the main door and there would quite literally be a stampede. Staff (including myself) would be pressed up against the walls in terror. I was shouted at by crazy Asians chefs for making the rice taste burnt (eh?) and nearly set on fire trying to hand out Japanese quisine. Once you have scraped the goopy remnants of corn soup from 150 tables for 3 days in a row...well, that's about all I ever wanted to see of Asia.


However...


If you have been reading any of this and not just scrolling through to look at the pictures you will know that an Turas - the Journey - is all about returning to Scotland. After nearly 4 years of trying in vain to get back there directly from Australia I realised it was going to take a more creative approach. It was then I decided to follow my mate Ewan's advice (pictured - teehee :-) and take the long way round. Hey, I've always thought Mongolia would be fascinating.


The original plan was to head to Europe to teach English. I started a Tesol course to facilitate this and it was during this stage that I kept coming across references to Asia and encouragement from other English teachers to try it.


When my recruiter (finally!) started responding to my emails last week, every single job was for China...so now we are looking at Asia as a definite plan. I don't want to spend more than a year there as I am looking at 2 years in Europe before heading back to Scotland...and I would dearly love to be in Scotland before I am 30. And before Miss M is too far into her schooling to be disqualified from Gaelic classes.


But China? China! My family are horrified. Even my GP was distressed, and advised me to head to Mongolia instead (as he handed me 2 pages of vaccinations recommended for Aussies travelling to China!!!!!!)

Early Childhood

Some of you may be wondering what a Secondary teacher is doing dreaming of teaching letters and numbers to tiny tots...you were? Great!

I've never really been convinced that I 'belong' teaching a particular age group. Sometimes I think all those years of organising my siblings and cousins into playing schools was more about me as an organiser or manager than about me as a teacher.

I always looked over the shoulder of my primary colleagues with great envy whilst at uni. I was GREAT at handwriting - I wanted to do a whole semester on handwriting! Making a model of a volcano? I wanted to do that! Learning the guitar? Are you serious? I have a dusty guitar lying in the corner of my room right now! And they get to do ART! Argh! My 3rd year (primary) flatmates in my 1st year thought I was nuts doing secondary when clearly I was born to be a primary teacher. But I seemed to get along with the other "secondaries" so much better than with the "primaries", and I was fascinated by the History component of the course - sometimes even by the English lectures.

I remember being close to tears on my first prac when Katherine was practicing her lesson in preparation for lecturer assessment visits (the principal of the college was coming to do ours). I was teaching Ancient Egyptian genealogy to Year 12s I'd never met and she was teaching the letter B to a class of year 1st who adored her.

When I travelled to Scotland I felt even more strongly about teaching primary and it was part of the reason I allowed myself to be convinced to move to London - the supply teaching agency would allow me to work in Primary schools. It was interesting and infinitely preferrable to supply teaching in London Secondaries, and I had a couple of job offers, but Scotland drew me back. Up north it was hard enough trying to get a job in my own subject areas, let alone branch into something new. The GTCS see to it that all teachers remain rigidly in the areas they trained in in their early 20s when they didn't know better.

I love History. The only job I've ever enjoyed was teaching History in Stornoway. I've thought about working in museums or in heritage, but in Australia at least, I'd need further study and history teaching experience - impossible as they've squished my beloved subject into SOSE so it is no longer recognisable.

Then along comes my own preschooler, and a short contract with a local prep/1/2 class and I start wondering again...

So this is the age group I am hoping to work with whilst teaching English. I will miss the teenagers...sometimes.

Holes in your nose

Miss M got this book out of the library last week:

It is quite mind bending to read but she is fascinated by it. When I noticed the Japanese name on the cover it got me wondering whether or not it was related to the book "Everyone Poops" that I remember Rove having on his show a few years ago.

Sure enough:

http://beeskneesbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/boogers.html

If I am struggling to spend time with Miss M now, how will I cope when I am working 8 til 6 (possibly) 5 days a week, in a foreign country? On one hand I know it will make the time we do have together more precious as it will be the only time we have. We will also be alone and probably won't have TV (or at least, won't be able to understand any of it!). We will hopefully have the chance to do lots of wee trips together.

I am also hopeful for a job where she will be allowed to attend the school. Some stories I've read of more rural schools seem to paint a more flexible picture. I've also found an advertisement for a part-time toddler room job. Mornings only. Naturally working part-time might mean we can't afford to live (especially when I am supporting a child as well) but at the same time I have discovered the variances in pay between international/expat style schools and more local schools. The latter advertise salaries about 50% of what they are offering in the expat schools. Not all the expat schools are exactly that - some of them cater for local students but simply follow an international curriculum.

At the moment it looks like the going rate in China (this is for a fully qualified teacher) is around RMB 10 000 in local schools or early childhood centres and RMB 20 000 in International schools. So feasibly, a part-time role in an International school would be a brilliant stroke of luck. On top of earning the same as someone in a language school, I would also expect to have accommodation and airfares included, as well as visas, medical, tuition and et cetera.

The job is through one of the larger recruiters who send me out job mailers all the time yet cannot find the time to respond to my emails, so I am going to have to bombard them. There's a whole other post in that...

To come full circle, while Miss M is currently engrossed in nose picking and boogers, Mummy is currently reading 'Eat, Pray, Love' which has such widespread rave reviews that I couldn't help but purchase it (especially as it was 50% off). I am about a 6th of the way through and although the writing is great, it is a little irritating and I am worried that I might end up putting it in the crap book pile. I hope not. Even Julia Roberts and Oprah have bought copies for their friends.

Procrastination

I cannot fathom what is the matter with me. Before the course books came I was so hyped for Tesol and ready to complete the whole lot in a couple of weeks and be...GONE. Now I find I can barely lift the cover (that's if I can find the books at all).

Firstly, it has to be studying alone...by distance, whatever. It is quite desperate at the best of times but in this case (in comparison to my 3 previous experiences of study via distance), the college really have abandoned me to my own devices. There are no online or phone tutorials (although there is a tutor I can contact via email. She is in Melbourne, I think). There is no 'Blackboard' or virtual learning environment where I might interact with other students. There is no schedule for learning and actual checkups as per the Gaelic course with Sabhal Mor Ostaig.

It's just me and these bloody books...and don't get me started on them! FRUSTRATING! It feels like there should be a second book to explain the first. There are huge gaps in information - and I am a bloody English teacher! A few activities I've worked through so far have been so sparsely explained I've actually had to email the course tutor - unheard of in the history of saoghalbeag studying!

I think it is also difficult because I am not based in a school to be able to apply the learning - or even to assess the learners themselves and comprehend where they are coming from.

There is also the one parent family procrastination. I find it impossibly hard to knuckle down for real study when she is around. I know I am going to be interrupted the minute I start so I don't. Start. I do everything else possibly possible before I start the TESOL - which means it usually starts around 4pm when there are no toddler programs on telly to distract her and she's starting to get tired and cranky and hungry and then I decide I should probably bath her and start dinner anyway...but by this stage I am getting desperate to at least do SOMETHING of the course so instead I persevere. I also feel guilty that here I am learning how to make learning fun for other people when I can't even find a spare minute to work on an activity with her. So I will make a cake with her or make a mess with paint and glue, or go into the garden...

We now have a fully landscaped and manicured front yard thanks to TESOL.

Frustration

I have neglected the blog...again! I am still here. Have just lost the will to blog in this past couple of weeks.

Firstly, I finished with my environmental education job and we are poor as dirt. The company had some crazy issues (or namely ONE crazy issue who verbally abused me after I spent 2 hours driving to the office on HER command only to be told my being there was pointless and costing them money! Staff turnover of 14 in under 2 years in an office of only about half a dozen is all I can say - shame on the Board!). They also had only one tour booked for the whole of term 4 so I figured it was an appropriate time to concentrate on finishing my TESOL course, doing prac, maybe even getting some work. The plan was to move to the Coast as there are numerous English language schools there and...NONE here.

This brings up the accommodation dilemma: my sister and I share a house that we bought last year. If I move away for work we need to rent it out - but where does she go? To our mother's...? What about the rising prices of rent on the Coast - unaffordable on a single income (which is not even guaranteed)? Not to mention it will be difficult to get a lease for less than 6 months so that puts all my plans out...I looked into staying with my Grandmother but before I could put the suggestion to her she was hospitalised by illness...

WHY IS EVERYTHING SO BLOODY DIFFICULT???

I also made myself sound like a numpty as the language schools started phoning me and I had to keep saying I was "waiting to hear back from my Nanna before I considered any posts"...

On top of that, of course, is the childcare dilemma.

Sometimes I really do wonder if there is any way I could give up my daughter for a month or 6...could I do it? Could she handle it? Would I handle it? They used to do it all the time in the olden days - had too many kids so the older ones would be shunted out to barren aunties or to be maids or lackeys in big houses...But I regret it instantly and know that I would sooner severe an arm or leg than let her out of my sight. I can barely sleep when she's not in the room or if she spends a night at her Nanna's. I get bored and listless when I haven't seen her for a while. I find it difficult to do things we always do together (like go to the shops or have coffee) without her. (word to the wise - do NOT look up the spelling of severe on google images. I nearly puked!)

Frustration...(well whaddya know, it's already a TAG!)

Something about nothing...

We haven't left yet >sigh<.

Still in the land of Oz, still working through my Cert IV in TESOL (towards which I have a disturbing lack of motivation...).

I have discovered that as I have a teaching degree, I have 2 options for jobs - international schools or English language schools. The first are mostly expat kids and very good money. The others don't pay quite as well but involve teaching local kids, which is what I am interested in. Although at this point lots of money sounds great because I have...

NONE!

It is starting to freak me out a wee bit, mainly because nothing seems to be on the horizon to change this empty coffers situation.

My casual job has peetered out to nothing - my final tour was last week (oh, I also resigned - long story don't ask but there was no further work really for the rest of the year anyway) and it's final term here so supply teaching is limited. I have my first day ALL term coming up in two weeks time - so it's a dire situation.

So I have been trying and TRYING to find a solution work-wise for the period from now until January (which was our EDD) but strangely enough things keep going cockeyed. I had a couple of positive phone calls for jobs on the Coast and thought we might move in with my grandmother to keep her company and save money etc (also short term so a rental would be hard to organise), but she went into hospital right as I was about to ask her if we could stay ... perhaps she guessed??? Another family member offered us a room but now the jobs may have fallen through...argh!

In the meantime I am thinking...(not always a good thing!) What if we looked into jobs NOT abroad for a spell (say, 6 months), which would give us a chance to save money, rent the house out before we left the country, practice living 'away from home' and also give me some relevant experience prior to trying to secure a job OS?

So I have emailed NT schools and another organisation that runs literacy projects in Cape York...both sound really interesting (working with kids from Indigenous backgrounds) and would be incredible experiences in their own right, buuuuut...I feel like I am wimping out AGAIN and finding more excuses not to leave. Don't get me wrong - oh, I still want to leave...desperately. But dreaming and doing are two different cats. Leaving is scary...maybe a job a little closer to home would make it easier to go further away? Plus there's the lack of funds...I feel awfully more apprehensive planning a sojourn in Asia with $20 in the bank than I might if I had a few thousand dollars.

I even emailed some hostels in New Zealand about working there over the Summer - a couple of them had links to English language schools or classes and I thought that it might be a fun way to start the RTW, but so far my emails have been met with SILENCE - more on that in another post as it has intensely irritated me. It is SO rude. And why don't they want me???

So...a lot of something about nothing because we still haven't set off. So far my CV has done more travelling than I have but I am ready to go. I just spent 7 days landscaping my front yard and this week I am planning to start the BIG JUNK CULL of all our ... junk! So, stay tuned for that exciting development!

One more thing...

The whole purpose of this morning's blogs (when I really should have been getting dressed and ready to head to the library for Friday morning Storytelling and Craft) was because I stumbled across this (on silversprite's blog):

The Isle of Berneray e-shop. They sell such delights as a

as well as this (my personal favourite): a keepsake box adorned with a local black face:

and of course, the Berneray calendar. This is the single page version. You can also buy a 12 months calendar (okay, of course they're all 12 months but this one has a picture a month):

With all the drama going on in Kyleakin at the moment, it is refreshing to see a village who have embraced modern technology and are doing what they can to keep their home alive.

REALLY should be at the library by now, so more on Kyleakin at another time.

Other blogs

So...given that I was going to be a librarian in a place early convict settlers described as 'the mouth of hell', I thought a great name for my blog (down there) would be something along the lines of "the librarian at the end of the world" or edge of the world or ... you get the picture.

Google informed me that sadly, there was already a librarian at the end of the world and I would have to try harder. Of course I went for 'the librarian at the OTHER end of the world' but then not getting the job kind of got in the way of that blog.

So, who was this librarian at the end of the world? Imagine my delight to discover they were in Scotland! And the westerly islands to be precise! Given the name (silversprite), and the profession (librarian) I was (terrible generalisation) expecting an elderly man or woman with a twinkle in their eye. I am pretty sure this is not how silversprite would be described in real life.

Photo from silversprite also available in the Berneray 2009 Calendar

Anway: a plug for the blog if you have not already found it from my links to the left. Brilliant photos, interesting anecdotes from Berneray (island he lives on). There's also some IT speak that goes on which usually leaves me feeling hopelessly inept and old but hey, that's how I found out about Second Life before the Australian media...:)


Another brilliant, brilliant blog is Shauny's 'What's New Pussycat'. That one has been in my Favorites (sic) for a few years now. An Australian girl in Scotland - how could google not bring me this delight the day I got my computer and plugged in the ADSL??? And yes, that's pretty much how I found the blog. There's heaps more to Shauny - even the really old stuff (I am embarrassed that she has been blogging for YEARS and YEARS - and that I had not discovered it. I stupidly thought blogging was relatively new and that it had not been around when I was travelling, but NOooooo, I am just ignorant!) The pic is from a recent entry discussing the infamous British Washing Up Tub/Bowl.


Of course, there is Prague blog, which I think I've already mentioned. Found this one when I was looking into Tesol a couple of months ago. I really want to go to Prague now...but baby steps! I think it's called Delayed Gratification - I think it will be good for me to live in Asia for a while. And everybody says it is good to gain experience there. If I also manage to save some money these will both help in Europe where apparently you can't get jobs without experience and they don't provide accommodation and other perks that seem to flow freely in Asian countries.


And Angus keeps me abreast of Scottish politics...the only politics that have ever managed to make me cry, or even to capture my attention for more than 5 minutes. They may not let me vote but they will never take my freedom to pretend I did! (I won btw). He also manages to explain away many of the nagging questions I had after living in the Western Isles for a few months in 2004 (schools, ferries, windfarms...). Photo from recent entry discussing the axing of nearly 100 workers at a local fish processing plant. You can read it here.

There are others, but these are the main ones that have me rushing to my laptop instead of tending to my daughter...

Something good

I have been following Silversprite's blog for most of this year. I think I stumbled across it initially during one of my mad, "I want to be a librarian" periods. I still want to be a librarian but I can't commit to the postgrad study so maybe in a few years...

Ahh, I remember now - I had applied for a job in Strahan, which is a tiny place on the wild west coast of Tasmania. Cold, mountains meeting the sea, olden days buildings...heck, they are still using steam trains! The job was in community education - managing the local library and learning centre (yep, the job I'd dreamed of years ago back in Scotland). And whaddya know it looks just like Scotland. Have you seen how cheap house prices are in Tassie? It was perfect, just perfect! My mum, by chance, even happened to be visiting the village right at the time I was applying and being interviewed.

On that note, what a circus! It took WEEKS (possibly months - I initially applied in December, heard nothing until late January, early Feb and interviewed in February) for them to process the job applications. There were no less than THREE senior staff interviewing for the TEN HOUR PER WEEK post. Yep, 10 hours a week and all that drama. Not only that, but it took them so long to process the applications that I think I phoned twice to check the job had not been given to somebody else already, only to be told the panel had not even met to discuss it. Bearing in mind that when my Mum visitied the place in December (around the time of the job application), there was already a temporary staff member in there who told Mum that they were struggling as they had so few staff. Then interview lady tells me that they were also looking for people for nearby Zeehan and Rosebery (sp?) and would I consider those? I said yes to everything, took the interview (VERY stuffy and formal and except for Portree High School Interview the First the most excrutiating half hour I've ever endured).

So, I didn't get the job. It devastated me for quite a while. Not least because although the bastards advertised in November and applications had to be in by December, all their fluffing around did not produce a result until sometime in MARCH (and by the way, I was NEVER informed, which I thought was a common courtesy for people who reach interview stage). So, for those not in Australia, March is like October in the Northern Hemisphere. Both school and uni have resumed, so it's too late to get a teaching job or start a course. I was facing another long year of supply teaching when I stumbled across the Bremer Tafe Diploma of Community Services Management, completely misunderstood what it was about and spent a lot of money on hot air...but that vitriol will save for another time.

For now, I am talking about Silversprite (and may have been slightly distracted). I may have to start a new post...

A good reason for not getting the job in Strahan...look at the size of that thing!

Working 9 to 5...

Okay, I'm not. I have a toddler and I am studying - I work part-time. Or at least I did, but the organisation I work for have let the program slide into ill repute so only one group booked for this term. I am on the move, anyhow, and recently sent off my CV to a few English language schools on the coast. I have not finished the Cert IV yet (that would be a miracle!) but hoping my existing teaching quals will help out.

I really want to get some experience before I go overseas, plus now that I'm getting into the workbook I'm so keen to get into a classroom and try things out...

Plus I need the money. Starting to freak out as the days count down to January and I am still on the poverty line.

Wrote off to Select Education (aka Teach Anywhere) but they are the strangest teacher recruitment agency in the world. They flood me with mailers and poorly punctuated/spelt/grammartised emails about teaching positions all over the world but will not respond to direct questions. Hopefully they are not like Smart Teachers, who would also bombard me with job lists, then refuse to respond to my applications and subsequent emails wondering if they even got them, and further emails asking if there was a reason I was not being considered...

English teacher for sale!

To balance - a good book

A long time ago, in uni, or perhaps even the end of high school, I remember a very short friend of mine (not that her height has anything to do with this...) spending a very long time (but that was neat!) reading a very thick book...

I think it may have been part of our English curriculum as my recollections of the film are all stop start and broken images which usually indicates that the film was "studied" (ie: mercilessly destroyed of any chance to be appreciated by mad English teacher with a remote). The only part I really remembered from the film (which may actually indicate that even WORSE than "stop-starting" the teacher only let us watch "segments"...god how that used to irritate me!). I can't imagine...oh, forgot to say the part. It was the beginning, where the girl is forced to marry/sleep with someone she doesn't want to and she runs away.

Anyway, I can't imagine that it was on the school reading list. I would have read it as I did not start skipping the reading of books until uni - ironically when I started my English literature degree, so outcome achieved by the uni!

Anyway, Katherine carried this book around for so long that it is forever associated in my mind, with her. A while back I found it on special for a few dollars and I bought it...but despite being a confessed bookworm/nerd/avid reader, it has sat on my shelf for well over a year. It is just so frikken THICK!

However, all this talk of teaching English overseas and possibly going to Asia reminded me of the book. Plus I am trying to cut down on my consumption of murders and crime shows, which is all that seems to be on TV at the moment (I am watching City Homicide, Bones, The Strip, Taggart, Rebus, The Bill, Midsomer Murders (which I swore I'd never watch!) and probably some others I can't even recall...sad, sad, sad!). The only show outside this genre is Shameless, which although possibly the most brilliant show ever made, is pretty much all about crime (drugs, prostitution, underage drinking, child neglect, welfare fraud...)

So I read it and it is brilliant. An amazing book - why did I not read it before? Although I am glad I did not as I may not have been as receptive to learning about Chinese culture as I am now that it is a possible home for us next year. It is so insightful into the Communist regime that I understand why it was on our English reading list (in fact I can feel the English teacher rising up inside of me shouting "YES! Put that one on the list!" and I even had a few scary moments of imaging activities to convey the lessons in the book to students...argh!)

The book was a bit of an epiphany to me. If I can speak in the language of my CHC lecturers, it produced a paradigm shift, altered my worldview. It made me feel like a lazy fat Australian slob and I admit that when I see people who have Asian features in the street or the shops (not so common in Noobah but I do get out of this town sometimes!) I can feel myself perceiving them in an entirely different way. I don't want to sound like Tamara but I really was a bit like her in terms of thinking about Asia and travel in that region. Blind, ignorant and awfully condescending. My heritage is in Europe and since travelling there my future is there also, but I that is no excuse for being ignorant of the rest of the world. I think because of the vast numbers of people living in the Asian regions, as well as (what I think is) dehumanisation of them in our media (ie: desensitising us: thousands die in an earthquake in Thailand and it is glossed over UNLESS there happens to be a 'westerner' in the rubble).

I don't want to speak too soon as I don't actually have a job lined up yet, but it is feeling like deciding to go to Asia next year was a good decision, or even the 'right road for us to be on' if you want to get all freaky like that.