What’s next…

I recently learned that once I get my 2^nd year working visa granted, I don’t have to start it right away. I only have until I’m 30 to ‘redeem’ it, but as long as I leave Australia before my 1^st year expires (so that the 2^nd year isn’t triggered), I have it at my disposal for the next 5 years.

I have been thinking about traveling in between my time here, and actually getting back to teaching. I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I miss it, and how good it felt to get ideas across and see progress in students. I miss Mr. Cho, I miss all of my tutor students from Wollongong. I also have started to feel that creeping prickle of knowing it is about time to get some really good full time experience under my belt for the future.

It would be different if I had something lined up here in Australia for when I come out of this in April; I’d be keen as to stay the next year and do something really amazing or rewarding – but I don’t have anything in the works job wise, and I don’t have the funds to feel comfortable enough just traveling this beautiful country (the original potential plan, I would have somehow made it happen!). I’m nervous my 2^nd year here would just be the same as my first: find the cheapest apartment, find a causal nothing job (anything that will hire me), live sparingly, party on! Don’t get me wrong, this was incredible for my first year, it was exactly what I needed and wanted and I enjoyed every single part of it; meeting people, finding my perfect little social circle, experiencing two perfect end-of-exams-partying periods, going on so many little mini adventures in my NSW realm spanning Bega & Byron… it remains one of my favourite years to date (or 8 months of a year!).

But I’m not sure the simple repeat (of course things wouldn’t be the exact same, but it would have the same potential) would be fulfilling enough for me now, to do it again for another full year. I would hate for anything about my life here to be disappointing, and I fear that another round of the exact same stuff might be just that (you know that feeling when you’re in 3^rd or 4^th year of Uni and you go to a 1^st year party in res? Haha.. it might be kind of like that. Which I actually did last year! And it was awesome! Haha, but circumstances were rather special…).

One of my favourite quotes of all time,

“All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell.

And that’s just it.

I’ve been thinking that teaching would give me a solid purpose again, help ground me for a little bit in routine and accomplishment and good, meaningful work. It would certainly help open more doors to other international schools hiring in the next few years (which has always been the general life game plan). But I don’t have a huge interest in teaching in Australia; it is the closest country to England that exists on the educational front, in terms of policies and procedures and expectations and data and general school structure. I’m not sure behaviour could ever be quite as bad as England, but from the volunteering I did a few months back (at a dodgier school in Warrawong) I got a small sample that helped me know it would be close. Which is not ideal. I need my next teaching experience to be such a positive, enjoyable one.

Working and living in a foreign country isn’t the easiest, especially to do that on your own. I have always wanted to teach in Thailand (since England, I remember specifically researching positions there way back when, and I have talked about it to some significant extent with those closest to me). Having a contact there now is just a bonus, it might be really nice to actually do that with someone who already knows the ins and outs. There is so much value in figuring those things out for yourself (like I did to a degree in Italy, and here in Australia), but I know that my next teaching experience needs to be as enjoyable as possible (we the Cantell survivors have earned that!), and having the head of the department on my side would make things so much easier.

Not that they sound like they need to be made easier… the job description sounds like a dream. One single full time class, 7 year olds! On average, just 3 hours of teaching a day: math, English and science in our own little homeroom. I’ve already been told that my class is one of the best behaved in the school, cute energetic imaginative kids still so keen to learn! I’m so excited to have one group, to be able to get to know my students personally, to have my own routine and classroom management contained to one room and one group of kids. I also know from my experience in Italy that this age group is one of the most receptive when learning a new language, so the progress and rewards in teaching will be awesome for all.

Having someone there, all personal connections aside, just having that resource to help me settle in and find my way and adjust to the language and the cultural barriers – since it would definitely be a shock to my system after the cruisiest, breeziest year here in Aus with all of these decently well-spoken native English people ;) – would be really helpful. It would be an experience, and I would have one of my best friends there with me when things get tough. Plus! They are doing essentially a full-staff hire, so I would get to be a new person amongst a big handful of new people. I wouldn’t have to feel like I needed to catch up or fit in to a life and a staff already established. I could just focus on me and my teaching and bettering my practice and doing it for the right reasons, and I could meet the new people and make my own connections and be apart of the new resources.

The biggest reason why I am so keen for this (or even considering it at all), is that I will always have year 2 of Australia in my back pocket (at least until I’m 30!). I absolutely love that, and I feel like I would put it to such better use after a year or so abroad; I will better appreciate it once more, I will have more direction and focus as to what I will want to do here for another year, and I will have more options after I get this year of teaching in Thailand under my belt. I would be coming back into Australia with brand new eyes again, and it will always be my something extra to look forward to in an already exciting abroad life.

And who knows, a year or so of teaching abroad could be just what it takes for me to secure a real position back here in Aus one day, something that I would feel more confident and better experienced for, something that held the potential for a sponsorship to fulfill my current dream of Australian Permanent Residency. Who ever knows, but it’s nice to think about!

There are about a million and a half other things to consider (all of you are thinking the most obvious things about me moving to Thailand…), yes. But it feels right. And it feels like I don’t have to consider or sort those things out all by myself. It feels like pages might actually have the chance to settle simultaneously, and things could work out really nicely, at least for this particular experience. It’s always been about one day at a time, one step at a time, one month at a time and then seeing where the cards fall.

So maybe it’s just time to finally deal them out and place our bets!

I couldn’t be more excited :)

As a result of my addiction to this world...

For most of my life I have believed that words are the ruins left by those compelled to record their thoughts as the result of their addiction to this world, and just as ancient pottery must break into shards and ancient buildings are reduced to their foundations and dinosaurs have left behind their skeletons, all of our scribblings and notations, even this here narrative, must eventually lose their meaning. I say this to you, and yet I still attempt with all of my literary might to describe my experiences, though I can promise you that nothing, in the end, will seem conclusive. Stories are like dreams in this way. They happen. They do not happen. They are right here. They exist in some other world entirely.

And there are some dreams that get stuck between your teeth when you sleep, so that when you open your mouth to yawn awake they fly right out of you. I have been confusing my dreaming with reality, my make-belief with actuality. I spend so many hours each day in solitude, constructing images and scenarios and perfectly punctuated paragraphs in hopes that someday, somehow, I will understand how to bring them to life, how to make relevant these remnants of my mind, to preserve this rubble as relics, with honour and reverence, to somehow survive the inevitable destruction of significant worth.

I am indeed addicted to this world, and I am in awe of my life. You are allowed to hold a higher admiration for your own work in existence, especially when all you do is aim to be someone whose life is routinely transcendental. And when this is your only (or primary) intent, you begin to recognize divinity in the everyday ordinary. Your own life becomes unrivaled, your existence unparalleled, your whole world exceptional. You lose any desires you once had to be accepted, to be validated, to be authenticated by anyone or anything. You stop searching for things to make you happy and start simply counting all of the ways you smiled that day. You stop waiting for circumstances to improve and start wondering how life in its current state could possibly get any better. You count blessings instead of hours remaining in a work shift or days remaining in a workweek or months remaining on a contract. You spew sanguineness, you radiate readiness and buoyance, you attract fortune and opportunity.

I find meaning in my motions, in my daydreams and my dialogues, even if I know these things may not survive the ultimate test of time. That is okay, because right now they are strong and beautiful and alive. Right now they are relevant, if to no one else but myself. Right now I have every motivation and every intention to keep these dreams at the surface of both my sentient and my subconscious.

Sure, a new exciting life lays right on the horizon for me… but this life right here and now is certainly magnificent anyway.

What went wrong?

Part of this heart is fire, but part of this heart is glass. Don’t things change, as we go 'round? Aint it the strangest thing, that we’re both strangers now?

What went wrong?

Nothing and everything. Nothing: we had an awesome time; we had magical adventures and stimulating conversation and really great sex. We even made real connections in those handful of predawn conversations that I and maybe he will remember for ages and ages. I imagined things in his company that I’d never bothered to imagine before: what it would feel like to walk barefoot on a volcano; how to find the patience to count all the stars; whether it physically hurt to grow old. I could never decide if his eyes were more milk chocolate or mudslide. I wondered if his lips would save the impression of mine, the way my pillow always knows how to come back to the curve of my head night after night. I didn’t tell him these things because it was all so much bigger than words.

Everything: all that stupid grey area. The deadlines and red tape and divergent cross paths leaving one of us more invested than the other; the way that we got on brilliantly and then had nothing much to say to each other; the manner of our parting; the fact that I’m no nearer to appearing in the sleeve notes of that next record than I was before I met him, though he’ll always remain one of the most crucial storylines in this here narrative. It’s not a case of the glass being half full or half empty; more that we tipped a whole half-pint into an empty pint pot. I had to see how much was there, though, and now I know.

There’s part of you I remember, but there’s part of you that I’ve let go, and so many things I still wish I could have let you know (before everything changed, as we went 'round). Aint it the strangest thing, that we’re both strangers now?