Monday 13 September 2010

Happy happy joy joy

Two notable things about my last week in Austria:

1) From my last post youĺl know about my standing up for myself to secure better working conditions. Well, not only did they apologise for putting me in such a situation......they have offered me more work in October/November. Now that I know I can take care of myself I had no hesitation in accepting. Ka ching goes my travel fund!

2) The second occurrence of note is that as there were only eight students this week, myself and the other teacher, Chris, were able to join in on the sailing course. I learned how to do knots and everything! On Friday morning we had our exam - which I did in German, thank you very much! I am now the proud holder of a certificate in Basic Sailing from the Austrian Sailing Association.

Apart from the giddy delight of falling head over heels with a new sport, this has also been a great boost for myself and MsAmused and our plans (hopes) of signing on as crew on a yacht sailing from Darwin to Indonesia next spring. All I have to do now is find out the English names for the knots I know!

On Saturday, once I had waved goodbye to Chris and the last of the students I set off for Bratislava.

I was really excited about my first foray into Eastern Europe. I´ve been here two days now and I´m still pinching myself!
My two friends met me off the train, right on the platform. It was a strange and wonderful moment. When I had said goodbye to this couple in Winchester in July I had promised to visit them in Bratislava before Christmas. I meant it with all my heart, but I can´t deny there was a lurking suspicion that it would probably be financially impossible.

Lo! and Behold! Seven weeks later I´m hugging them at Bratislava Hlavna Stancia (main station)

God is very, very good to me. (happy sighs)

And thanks to getting work organised for October-November, Iĺl now be able to keep my other promise to my Polish friends to visit them!

All this is BEFORE I go travelling! heh heh. I am sooooo in love with life right now!

In the next post I will do a proper report on my stay in Bratislava and my reaction to Soviet Chic........

Live long and prosper.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

An adult! Who......me??

I was presented with an oppurtunity to `grow and mature´last week. Adult speak for almost finding myself up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
I was informed that I would be running the language camp on my own this week as there would only be 7 students. My heart sank as I read THAT email! The prospect of being effectively on duty from 3pm on Sunday to 12 noon on Saturday AND with no increase in salary mind you!

Well, to begin with I sent back an email of begrudging acceptance but the longer I thought about it the more indignant I got. Until it wasn´t long before I had my high horse all saddled up and ready to go.
I sent off texts / emails to my parents and former TEFL boss, canvassing second opinions - even on my high horse I felt the need of a little back up!
The jury returned a unanimous verdict - No Way Jose!
Thusly vindicated I phoned Head Office and made it clear that sole responsibility was unfair and that as they had neglected to send me a contract (despite my repeated requests), I was under no obligation to stay and could just toddle off to Bratislava a week early.

Which could have really inconvenienced my hosts, but Head Office didn´t know that!
HQ texted me back with an offer: a wage increase of €100. I emailed back a polite refusal. It wasn´t about the money I said. I was terribly grown up about it and used words like ´morally irresponsible´, ´legally suspect´, and even, my favourite: "let´s be frank about this.."

Hah! Get me!!

I braced myself for leaving work a week ahead of schedule, but instead, in fairly short order I received a text and email from HQ apologising for putting me in this situation and reassuring me that I would have a teacher sent to me on Sunday.

RESULT!!

What surprised me most about the whole affair was what it revealed about how I see myself.

I am 33 years old and have been working professionally since I was 20 and yet when put into a mildly confrontational situation, I still had to work up a head of steam and gather a posse of supporters before standing up for myself. Then feeling ridiculously proud of myself for doing so.

All of which begs the question: When will I finally realise that I am, in fact, .....a grown up??

Thursday 26 August 2010

Send in the Clowns!

I am new enough in my career in TEFL that all experience is valuable experience. I learn just as much from the bad students as the good and sometimes more.

But like medicine, just because it´s good for you doesn´t mean it tastes good.

Today is my last day at Circus Camp, tomorrow I start traveling down to Austria for two weeks of surf & sailing camp and as I gird my loins for the fortnight ahead, I remember the words of wisdom my DoS, Mike gave to us: "When you´re working abroad, look for British Council accredited schools, at least you´ll know they are the best ones."

Well, I forgot those words of wisdom and I´m bitterly repenting now. I am working for a company where I am one of the most qualified! All the rest are glorified au pairs gleaned from American colleges. The one or two who can actually teach are the exception rather than the rule.
I have to teach without a black or white board, only minimal materials and ditto for resources.
Of the three teachers here, I am the one with the most German - hah!

All of this whining is because I am tired. Having already done six weeks of proper summer camp work in England, I had four days vegging out in Edinburgh before hopping a plane to Düsseldorf.

At these camps, I am expected to be a teacher, activity leader, group leader, counselor, translator and basically all things to all men. It´s wearing me out!

I fully intend to suck it up and see out the two weeks in Austria - I keep repeating mantra like that the money goes towards my travel fund.

But I still needed to vent a little (ok, a lot!)

I´m sure I´ll be able to look on the bright side tomorrow, especially after an evening all to myself in Neu Ulm.

In the meantime, thanks for listening!

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Life is a Three Ring Circus

Life is pretty laid back in this camp in the Black Forest, compared to how hectic it was in Mönchengladbach last week.
Yep, that town is a mouthful isn´t it. The only claim to fame the poor place had was as the birth place of Josef Göebbels. Not something to brag about!

Last week, us adults were on duty from 8 in the morning to till lights out at night. This week, while we still have the English lessons in the morning, after lunch the kids are whisked away to learn circus skills like juggling, acrobatics and whatnot.

If I ever figure out how to upload photos on this German computer, I shall show you some examples!

This leaves the other teachers and myself with a WHOLE 90 minutes of free time.
It´s heady stuff I tell ya! Then the kids get to do their chores; some have to feed the Alpacas, some the Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pigs, etc, etc. Which gives us another hour all to ourselves.

Add to that the free internet on tap and I am one ecstatically happy camper!

In other news, I found out yesterday that this weekend I am being relocated to the south of Austria, to a surf school for two weeks.
In yet another never before heard of town called ´Seeboden´.

That´s one of the things I´m really relishing about TEFL work. I´ve been doing it since the end of June and so far I have been to four cities - only one of which I ever had any intention of visiting. (That would be Oxford btw)

Now, I´m headed to some obscure corner of Austria, which is a country I´ve never been to, so I´m really excited about that. I´m also having very enjoyable daydreams planning my scenic route home, visiting a few friends along the way......

I´m especially looking forward to taking my cotton picking time to get to Austria, because I seriously need to spend a few hours in a city centre buying soap, socks and Good Sweet Lord some insect repellent!!

Goodnight and Godbless!

Monday 23 August 2010

Travelling Wilbury´s

I mentioned in the last post that one of the delights of working this month is the good it will do to my travel fund.

Allow me to elaborate, heh heh! (she says rubbing her hands together gleefully!)

Back in July when I was working in Winchester, my darling sister MsAmused, who is currently living it up in Wellington, invited me to join her in New Zealand in Jan/Feb and the two of us could go travelling together.

Anyone who has known me for more than an hour could probably tell you that the only thing I love more than travel is my family. So you can imagined that I jumped on that invitation like a dog on a ball!

So while I usually live by the maxim: ´if you want to make God laugh, tell him your long term plans!`, I will cautiously propose the following travel itinerary.

If only to give me something to look back on and say ´how did I get it so wrong!!´

I want to head to Sydney, via Mumbai or Singapore, visit my cousin and her husband and their new baby (who is currently still a bump), then fly up to Brisbane to visit one of my oldest, bestest friends, her husband and their little girl, and one of my darling partners-in-crime from my first year in Edinburgh (You know who you are Miss Duracell Bunny!).

Then over to Wellington, where MsAmused will give me the grand tour. We check out the North Island and then head to the South Island.
Which we will work our way around by couch surfing and working on organic farms. I think the highlight of that section of the trip for me will be the 3 or 4 day Sea kayaking trip we want to do.
Once we have visited every plot of earth that had anything to do with Lord of the Rings, we will head to Australia and tour from Sydney to Darwin.

Here we are hoping to get very lucky and charm someone from the Darwin Yacht Club to allow us to work our passage on a sloop sailing to Jakarta.
Ambitious innit?!

So it will be worth following this blog just to see how that works out! (hint hint)

If that works out, then we shall visit a TEFL colleague of mine who works in Jakarta.

Then two months schleppin´ around South East Asia, then back to sunny Winchester for the end of June to work in that TEFL paradise again. (note: this is not sarcasm, it really is a paradise to work in!)

If any of you darling readers have any suggestions as to things to do in New Zealand, Oz, Indonesia and beyond I would really appreciate them!

Next post: Life is a three ring circus.

Sunday 22 August 2010

Indian Camp - German style!

I have to admit that my first few days of camp in Germany involved quite a bit of culture shock. I had spent six weeks working in camps with about four hundred students and about thirty teachers and activity leaders, not to mention group leaders and centre management.

Then I roll up to the Youth Hostel which is precisely one hour from the middle of nowhere to find that there are thirty students and three teachers. (That´s three including me!)
Added to that the total lack of resources and materials and you´ll understand that I was feeling kinda wobbly for the first day or three.

The other teacher was a lovely Californian girl, Doris, and we had a German native, Kai-Üwe, who was our translator/parent liason and generally worth his weight in gold.
Happily we had really nice kids, which was even more important than usual when you consider that in effect, Doris and I were on duty from 8 in the morning to 10 or 10.30 at night.

The youth hostel itself was a joy to stay at because the staff were friendly and the food was consistently delicious.

(I may in the course of these posts mention food quite a bit: when you are a travelling teacher at the mercy of whatever the canteen throws at you, the quality of the food becomes a major conversation topic!)

On Saturday night we all slept in the teepees. I say slept; I pretty much lay there shivering all night. It was freezing! I have used my sleeping bag in August before with no problems, but in a regular two man tent, not a ruddy great teepee with the top open - my poor sleeping bag just couldn´t cope.

Happily, at one on Sunday afternoon it began to rain.....and it kept raining till after ten that night. The teepee tops weren´t closed off in time, which let the insides get wet, so Doris, the students and I all decamped to the Youth Hostel. Where Doris and I got single rooms with en-suite and a television. I watched CNN International while snuggled in bed on Sunday night, grinning like the cat who got the cream, the canary AND the warm fireside!

And all the while it was still sinking in how quickly I had landed this job, and yes, I was in fact in German for two weeks, possibly more.

Travel fund....ka-ching!!!!

Better late than never, chapter two

The update continues.....

On Thursday the 12th of August I had been home in Edinburgh for four days and was beginning to feel human again after two and a half days of solid vegging.

I met up with my friend Stephen and his visiting couch surfers for a drink in The Albanach, a lovely pub on the Royal Mile.

That night, feeling all kinds of restless, I turned off the T.V at 10.30 and headed upstairs. I decided to check my email to see if I had anything new from my sister.
There wasn´t, but what there was was a job alert from a German Summercamp company called Lingolino. The job had been posted two hours before, and remembering what my pal Lori had told me about some TEFL jobs only being posted for a few hours, I decided to apply right away.
I had to faff about updating my CV, referees and whatnot, but I sent off the application at about 11.30 and headed off to bed.

At 8.30 the next morning I stumbled out of bed to answer the phone, thinking all the while, ´this better not be a b"$&/%d of a telemarketer.

It wasn´t! It was Stefan, the founder of Lingolino. My interview went thusly:
Stefan: "From your CV you clearly have a lot of experience. How soon can you get here?"
So nine and a half hours after applying for the job, I was booked on a Saturday afternoon flight to Düsseldorf.
To say I was shocked is putting it mildly!

I actually jumped around the bedroom yelling with delight! More experience to add to my CV, more cash to put towards my backpacking fund and ....also importantly, as I had to wait another week to be paid by Isis, getting fed and found on someone else´s expense was very appealing!

Now came the hard part: organising everything!

I phoned home to break the news to my brother that he couldn´t come visit me next week as I would be in Germany. He was off gallivanting to Castlebar for the weekend, so I told the Parental Units my news.
Then I had my Isis mate Rosie coming for the weekend. I was meeting her off the train at Waverly at 3. So I called other Isis mate, Ronan, asked him to come with me and tried to fit a weekend´s worth of visiting into one afternoon and evening - and somewhere in the middle of all of this, pack!

Thank the good sweet Lord that with my first Isis paycheck I had splashed out and bought a brilliant rucksack to celebrate/mark my decision to go backpacking with MissAmused after Christmas. It made my life much easier! Especially, since arriving in Germany I have had no end of trucking about the place on trains!

That´s plenty to be going on with for now, and I´m only one week behind, so I´m catching up fast! ;)

Next post: Life in the Tipidorf (Teepee Camp)

Saturday 21 August 2010

Better late than never?

I hardly know where to start this post as I return from the longest hiatus in Blogging history! My last post being April 3rd.

I think I´ll work on the maxim ´Least said, soonest mended.´
Ironically, I´ve had a lot happen to me since April, plenty of blogging material that just went to waste!

But to summarise briefly, last Ash Wednesday I posted that I was circling a cross roads in my life about where I should go career wise. Should I get an office job, start my own business or pursue a career in TEFL.

As you may recall, I started volunteering as a TEFL tutor for East Lothian Council. Partly to get me out of the house and partly to get some TEFL experience on my CV.

That was one of the smartest moves I ever made as I quickly discovered how much I loved teaching English AND having volunteer TEFL on my CV got me work pretty quickly.

On Thursday, April 8th, I was applying for tefl summer jobs online. About 90 minutes after I began I got a phone call from the first company I had applied to. I had a great conversation with the most jovial interviewer it has been my pleasure to encounter and we set a date for a phone interview the following Monday.

That Thursday evening, Best Friend went into labour and in the early hours of Friday morning I became a GodMother to a beautiful baby girl!
Best Friend and baby came home on Saturday and on Monday I had my phone interview.
The upshot was I got the job! Joy was unconfined - I was on my way!

My contract was to start on June 29th so I went home to Ireland for 3 weeks before that. Dad was having chemo and Mum was laid up with a foot injury so I went home to spoil them rotten.

Then followed five weeks of the most amazing work experience with Isis Education and Travel in Winchester. It was the friendliest staff room I have ever been in and the only way the management could have been more supportive would have been to teach my classes for me!

After Winchester I taught in Oxford Isis for one week and then it was back to Edinburgh to sleep for four days solid and catch up on my laundry.

The adventure continues in the next post.....

Saturday 3 April 2010

Waiting to Exhale


Today is Holy Saturday, that quiet interlude between the solemnity of Good Friday and the exhultation of Easter Sunday. The breath before the plunge.

This year, that sense of waiting is two fold, as Best Friend is now two days past her due date and we are all waiting and wondering when labour will begin.

So this Lent for me has been preparation for both a resurrection and a birth. For the former, I have taken part in the services, taken up voluntary work and generally given my poor soul a badly needed spring clean.
For the latter, it has been a very satisfying time of cleaning house, putting up the cot and washing a positive mountain of baby clothes and nappies.

So here and now, all that is left to us is, waiting. All preparation done, our household abides in fellowship and waits on the Lord's time.

God bless.

(I know that was a tad ponderous, but it's the Easter Weekend for pete's sake - ponderousness is practically mandatory!)

Sunday 28 March 2010

The Long Good Sunday

Today our parish of St. Albert's celebrated Palm Sunday in St. Catherine's Convent.
As we stood in the garden where we were beginning the procession, I had a lovely sense of 'Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.' (The more things change, the more things stay the same)

This was because I had stood in the same garden the year before on Psalm Sunday, when I was up from Cardiff on a visit. I tell ya guys, you can't beat a church service for a sense of continuity!

This of course gave rise to all sorts of reflections about the past year, how far I've come and where on God's good earth am I headed next? Well, I know I'm in Edinburgh for the next 7 months at least, but I'm still left wondering where will I work and other 'quo vadis' type questions.

In slightly less head wrecking news, today sees us entering what should hopefully be the last week of Best Friend's pregnancy. Baby is due on Holy Thursday and Best Friend's parents are arriving tomorrow evening. So we have been busy this week rearranging rooms, washing baby clothes and filling the freezer with lasagna, meat loaf, chili and other deliciousness.

Now, all that's left to do is finish some basic tidying before the folks arrive, then hit the library for lots of lightweight books - I mean this both physically and mentally - that Best Friend can read in hospital and while breastfeeding (she'll need to hold them one handed you see).

Meanwhile, my baby sister, MsAmused, is living the life of Riley in Wellington, making nice new friends and basically living it large.
If I was an atom less delighted for her I would be consumed with envy!

As it is it's her journey is good incentive to get on and have my own adventures.

Thought for this evening I think I'll settle for making some Welsh cakes and watching a Bollywood movie with Best Friend!

Peace out!

Thursday 18 February 2010

Swan-tastic!

You know that image of the swan, all serenity on top but paddling madly beneath the surface? That's a pretty good analogy for my state of mind these days.

Next week my sister leaves for New Zealand for a year to eighteen months and though I wasn't dwelling on it consciously, it was really churning up my sub-conscious!
For the last four or five days all my dreams have been about travelling with MissAmused (sis) in obscure places and uncomfortable circumstances. I think the recurring theme of discomfort is clearly my mind bracing itself to missing her a whole heck of a lot.

I'm flying home in the morning - a prospect over which I would normally be 'cock-a-whoop', but this time I'm feeling so apathetic I can hardly bring myself to pack. Something I generally excel at and revel in.

There is a point to all this whining, I promise! What I have come to realise is that my discomfort is mostly due to the fact that MissAmused has never been this far from home for so long before. She is setting off on an exhilarating, terrifying and wonderful adventure and I can't be beside her to make sure everything is as perfect as can be. I am going to have to stand back, hand her over to the Lord and trust that he will shelter her even better than I could.

I said yesterday that I thought this Lent would be about discerning my path. Now I think it will be much more about handing my loved ones over to God. I reckon it's something I'll have to re-do on a daily basis.
Lots of rosary decades will be used up for this one!

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Ash Wednesday

Best Friend and I went to Mass today for Ash Wednesday, and as I knelt and prayed after Communion I meditated on where the Lenten journey would take me this year.

I've learned over the past few years that when I truly surrender, it can take me to some rather wonderful and unexpected places. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.

This year the beginning of Lent finds me circling the same crossroads I've been contemplating for a few months now, namely: what path do I follow career wise? Do I go for TEFL teaching, an office job or pursue my business idea?

So this Lent will be seven weeks of 'Hush up and Listen!' as I try to discern God's will for my working life.

I'm rather looking forward to seeing where this pilgrimage will take me, and finally getting past the crossroads.

Monday 15 February 2010

Spring is in the air

After the coldest winter in over fifty years, (boy do I pick my times to emigrate!) we're finally getting some signs of spring here in Bonny Scotland!

We are getting lovely blue patches of sky between rain showers, and I have actually been known to leave the house without a hat over the last week. The most satisfying for me was being able to hang a wash out on the line for the first time in five months. Which is great timing as Best Friend and I will be doing a stock take and laundering of baby clothes this week, getting another important job done before the immanent arrival.

I said in my first post that I intended learning German this year. This plan took a big step backwards last week when I showed up for class to discover it had been cancelled due to lack of interest. I was offered Creative Writing or Polish instead. I politely declined but inside I was whining: "No, no, no, you don't understand - I have a Swiss wedding to go to!"
So it's back to studying away myself on my online lessons and I will search my library - with a bit of luck I might get a Michel Thomas German course. That would be great because those things cost about eighty quid to buy.

Nothing to report on the job hunting front. It's a case of trusting God to move the mountain, but in the meantime I'll keep digging. While I was signing on last Thursday, I saw a pamphlet offering courses on setting up your own business. I can't imagine a worse time to start a business - I had planned to start one in October '08 before all hell broke loose, economically speaking. But while I'm on Jobseeker's Allowance I can do the course for free, and who am I to turn down a freebie?!
I duly made an appointment and I meet with the consultant tomorrow afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes.

Last Friday I did something else which I've been meaning to do for an age and a half, I went into the Edinburgh Volunteer Centre to see what I could give back to the community. I really want to do TEFL volunteering, for three quite selfish reasons:
  1. It will look impressive on my CV and give me a valuable edge in the job market.
  2. It will get me out of the house and doing something rewarding and productive, thereby saving my sanity.
  3. Due to a bizarre string of colds in October, sweet things have been anathema to me since October 18th, therefore, this Lent I won't be able to do my usual 'Mortification of the Flesh' and give up my favourite foods. So I'm going to be creative and take up something instead.
I found and applied for three TEFL oriented, volunteering posts, so we'll see how that goes.

Now I'm off to put another wash on the line. Huzzah!

Wednesday 10 February 2010

It takes a village...

They say it takes a village to raise a child and although I knew and heartily endorsed this statement already, yesterday I was given cause to believe it all over again!

Best Friend was at the hairdresser's for the important Pre-Natal hairdo: Baby's ETA is 7 weeks now. So I collected Best Friend's Boy from nursery and was looking forward to a productive afternoon of cooking dinner and doing a window treatment while BFB and his play date entertained each other rampaging around the rest of the ground floor.
Nothing I hadn't handled quite easily before. I got the korma started and then took down the bland Landlord's curtains and hung the nice Ikea ones. Added to that was the immense satisfaction from wielding hammer and nails - only to put up a picture hook, put fun all the same!

All was going swimmingly and those two plates were spinning nicely until BFB had some major regression in his potting training. Hosing down was required.
Twice.

So I discovered that a) Korma, though a deliciously mild curry, is also a very forgiving one, as it can take a little, 'carbon enrichment' and b) that one should never underestimate the importance of having someone to stir!

Happily for me that someone arrived in the shape of Playdate's Mum, who also brought news of a possible job.
I'll let you know how that pans out.

So it was with great relief that I began to read Henri De Lubac's 'The Splendour of the Church' this morning. I'm only half way into the first chapter but I can already tell that this book, like all the best theology books, is going to be intellectually taxing but ultimately rewarding.

At least this activity won't overwhelm my multi-tasking skills.

Monday 1 February 2010

And introducing.....


Dear All,
how exactly should one begin a blog? Should I be witty, suave or sophisticated? Erudite or urbane?

Hmmm, witty I can do, but I'm not so sanguine about the rest.

So I will simply start at the beginning and hope I hit my stride fairly soon.

In October 2008 my dearest friend and I walked the last 300 miles of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela from St. Jean Pied de Port in France, over the Pyrenees and across Northern Spain.
It was without a doubt the best five weeks of my life and I learned so much about myself, my faith, life, the universe and everything,
yada, yada, yada. Most delightfully, it also taught me that when I put my mind to it, I can accomplish just about anything.

This blog will chronicle the life and times of this accident pilgrim as I embark on my next pilgrimage - 'Grown Up Life'. I start the second decade of the millennium with quite a lot to explore:

  • I'm in a new city - Edinburgh (well, I have lived here before, but with only four friends still residing here I'll have to rebuild my social life from the ground up!)
  • I'm job hunting - with only the vaguest notion what job I want. Whatever I can get I suspect!
  • I'm learning German to prepare me for a friend's wedding in Switzerland in September.
  • Applying for a college place next September, we'll see how that skirmish with academia goes.
  • Exploring the nooks and crannies of my beloved Catholic faith under the supervision of my Dominican spiritual director.
  • And somewhere in the middle of all that, maybe, just maybe I'll get to do a little romancing as well!
All in all, I think I shall have lots to report and I really look forward to having you with me on the journey, to cheer me on, ask questions or give me directions when I get lost.