Six Months Later and Another Year Committed, Feeling a Bit Inspired

What an emotional roller coaster of a week. Monday I was ready to pack it all in. My stress and anxiety levels were at an all time high and for a first time in a long time I doubted whether this would work. I never entirely gave up hope though, I knew somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of my stuffed head that there was going to be a way. There is always a way, I couldn’t get this far and have it all far apart!

The head office of Education Queensland just finalized their part in my immigration process which means the rest is entirely up to me. Once I backfill the case they’ve started it becomes a matter of waiting for it to finalize. I am so happy to just be starting on time, with all my favourite people back at school.  Hopefully this is the end of all the immigration dramas and for all of you that have supported me through it, thanks.

I haven’t been writing because all I want to write about are the students school and how everyday, even the shitty ones, become sources of inspiration for me. I haven’t found a way to do that without getting in trouble. When I saw the future of my career, I imagined retelling the story of Romeo and Juliet to a group of very disinterested grade 9s over and over again but that obviously wasn’t what fate had stored for me. Instead it delivered a very powerful blow in the form of a modest special school with only 75 students and a staff with more heart than I have ever seen in my life.  I have never been excited to go to work. I have never in my life faced so many challenges and have never looked forward to facing more. I wish I could go into detail about my day-to-day adventures but it’ll just have to wait... maybe an anonymous blogger may spring up writing about a fictitious school somewhere in the Queensland bush. Who knows?  

My job this year is taking 11 capable minds and steering them through adolescence, which should be interesting, as I doubt very much I have ever outgrown mine. They are facing a time in their life that is one of the toughest, even without a disability and I feel for them but I don’t feel sorry for them, even though sometimes I really want to.  I can’t. I have seen them in action and they don’t need pity they just need someone to believe in them and we do.

This year, these kids will change my life forever and I can just hope that I can have a fraction of impact on them, as they will me! It’s going to be exhausting, I am going to be grumpy at times but I won’t lose my enthusiasm and I won’t deny these hard workers any opportunity they need to build themselves a successful and happy life, that is a promise. First day back tomorrow to organize the class. Here we go!

Two Week Countdown Begins...

I am going to miss my quiet mornings, waking up in the rocking chair with a steaming black cup of coffe by my side. I am going to miss my friends, family and I am going to miss the work that I have surprisingly become quite fond of but most of all I am going to miss the sense that my life was finally coming together!

This is one of those rare opportunities to test out what you can accomplish with next to nothing. With just the clothes on my back (and about 100lbs of combined luggage) I am setting out someplace brand new. I have no job lined up, I have a couple thousand pennies, no, excuse me- nickels saved and a place to crash. Under normal circumstances and a Dominique 3 years ago, this would not end well, this probably wouldn't be happening at all but for some reason no anxiety has creeped in and I am happy with my decision. It might just be that I will never have a life that is 'together' in the traditional sense and if that is the case I need to get over it quickly and get on with making the best of what I'm dealt.

My flight is booked and everything except for travel insurance, a backpack and rain boots have been acquired for the trip. I am going to break down everything monetarily, an annoying but sometime useful habit picked up from my Dad.  My flight was a reasonable $1750, travel insurance $550, VISA was $400 and my QCT certification was $350. All said, in the 3 months that I have decided to carry on with this I have spent a little over $3000 dollars to get to Australia. Add the luggage and tiny odds and ends to the equation and really there's absolutely no turning back now!

Adam and Nicole's wedding is fast approaching and every time I think about it I am so happy I decided to stay for it. This will be the first wedding I have been to for a friend and Adam couldn't be a greater one to have! Their generosity knows no limit and I would have been doing myself a disservice not witnessing first hand, real true love come together.

Today marks exactly two weeks until my flight takes off. I am sure these last 14 days will simply dissolve into pre wedding and trip mania but I'll make the most of it!

Next update will probably be from Australia. Looking forward to it!

Processing a Moment

As a good friend of mine would say, I am having a moment. I am frustrated because as excited as I am to leave and start something new I am angry because I feel I have no other choice. Every time the phone rings I still am hopeful it is a school board, ready to give me a chance, one that I decidedly deserve... after all the work I've put in.

If you really know me, then you know for the most part, at first I am very hard to get on with. I am not interested in making friends and to be honest I don't like a lot of people all that much. I have my close friends and that's about all I care to have. I am nice to people because I have to be and if I could live in a society where being alone most of the time was normal, I probably would've adopted it a long time ago.

Stoic as I am in that regard I want to confess that when I meet someone I instantly like, as rare as it is, it is a huge blow when it doesn't work out. Whether it be a romantic interest or someone who I want to befriend; I give myself to people I feel will do the same back. I feel I am either your best friend and protector or at the very best a fringe. That line very rarely varies but I have some friends who I have known forever and this attitude doesn't much apply to them.

I am upset because over the last couple of years I have made friends with individuals I have never felt closer to in all my life. People who have experienced with me what it is like to be Gen X and feel the terror of life's uncertainties in the exact same fashion. I have to leave the nest, this blanket of safety and understanding while starting all over again- I don't want to do that. I don't want to make nice and pretend all over again that I like people and I want to be around them just to hope and pray that I find some people I will genuinely want to be around. I am exhausted just thinking about it.

Does this all make me a bitch, unworthy of people's efforts - a recluse? I don't know... I guess in my defence I never chose to be this way, it's always something that has been with me my whole life. Being an outsider as a youngin' and learning to do things solo on the playground probably has a lot to do with my disinterest in others now. That's not self-pity, really, it's just the way things were- are.

But just as parting words, if you are reading this and feel anyway insulted, I apologize. Chances are I like you just fine... but chances are also I don't talk to you all that much. If you know me, you know my capacity to love and if you love me back we'll be just fine. As for Aussie, well I will just have to put on my happy, interested face, suck it up and if I am lucky, I will be able to make life long friends like I have here and in Korea. I am just realizing, as I get older, how much harder that gets.