Jackson Five

I feel like the newness of my new city in China has worn off and I’m down to the nitty gritty.  Speaking of gritty, the air is and it is all I can do to try and keep my lungs clean and my nose clear.  We are into a stretch of two working-Saturdays that are the days that we make up for the extra time we have off in the year due to Chinese national holidays.  So, this means for the next two weeks I will have a 6-day workweek.  Fortunately, I am not responsible for teaching all of these days, but we do have midterms, and it is that time of year when it snows indoors and I am buried underneath the snowman sized piles of marking. 

I’m not sure why but I always hear people at this time saying: “Oh, I’m so thankful I’m not an English teacher.”  It gets my goat a bit because being an English teacher can be such a privileged position.  There is a lot of trust involved and I get to know the thoughts and feelings of the students in a more personal way than some other subjects.  Still, it’s always about the marking and that’s really all some people know and comment on.  However, a full course load of English is too much.  I learned this last year the hard way. 

Speaking of Portland, there is a married couple teaching here who met in teaching school at Vancouver Island University in Powell River.  They are pretty cute and the girl is from Portland.  She used to be an English teacher and has since jumped ship to teach Tourism 12, Planning 10 and do some Academic Advising.  I guess I’m a little jealous of her and it is leading me to some other thoughts about teaching. 

I’m not sure that jealous is the right word because she is a very nice person and I really like her funny husband, but it’s just a grass-is-greener type of situation.  She seems to have some things figured out that I don’t feel like I do.  She is with her husband having these amazing experiences away from home.  I am always unsure about my decision to be an educator and I question it constantly.  My boyfriend is considering another deployment that will take him away from me for most of next year.  And she’s blond; I will never be blond.   

Sometimes I think I should just come home to Victoria and get a serving job.  Sometimes I think I just want an out from teaching like, “I couldn’t get a job, so I had to do something else.”  This out is of course a reality for me currently, however there is the Montessori training that I could try and enroll in.  I like the philosophy behind Montessori, but it costs about $7000.  More money sunk into the prospects of getting a job I think I might want.  The other option is that I go back and do some night classes at Uvic in French.  Neither of these two paths can guarantee me any success or security, but they are the narrow options that I am facing.  I was very tired last night when all of these thoughts started to occur to me and I still feel quite tired.  I know that the best thing to do is to push away the negative thoughts and focus on resting and pampering myself today on my one day off.  The answers will come in time and for now I will accept the questions as they are: just questions.  The other fabulous thing I love to focus on is that I have a brilliant man in my life that I am totally in love with.

The other day, I rolled over at 5:30am to Skype W because our time difference is exactly 12 hours right now.  I can usually see him before I go to work and it sets the tone for my day.  On this particularly polluted Thursday I was dreading getting up and having a hard time summoning the energy.  He smiled at me and said: will this help you get up?  He put on The Jackson Five and jumped up out of his seat.  Then he started to dance and air guitar the song!  I tell you, it is moments like those that make me think I really can stick out all of this distance.

It’s sunny today and I will take myself out for a solo walk to get some coffee and veggies for the week.  This will put everything in its right place.

For now, I will focus on the advice that I gave to my students before their exam on friday:

Sit down.

Take a deep breath.

Smile.

Now write.