Peaks and Valleys

ARGH!!! I just wrote a suoer long post and somehow lost it. ARGH!!!!

Life is Good

Things are finally looking up….

Top ten things in Tamland:

1- went to the ultra-posh KL sports medicine clinic yesterday and YA-FRIGGIN-HOOO!!!! I don’t need another surgery on my 98 year old knee… yay!!!! but do need heaps of rather expensive physio that is unlikely to be covered by my crap health insurance (heaps to be said for Canada’s universal healthcare policy)

2- after procrastination of epic proportion… I have finally finished my report card comments

3- just got back from a much needed beach holiday, nothing beats sitting next to the ocean thinking about nothing and everything all at once (see above pics of Tam with cutest baby in the world Aidan and super surfer girl Devon)

4- going on a Hallowe’en Hash Harrier Run tonight with Lynn and Hot Scott, finally the gross KL haze seems to be going…. but now it’s raining again… jungle run will be slippery and muddy

5- break up diet in combination with ongoing mild stomach bug ( I know sort of icky… but whatever) kicks ass over South Beach, have now lost all the weight I gained post first knee surgery and can once again fit in to fabulous suits I had tailor-made in Colombia, just in time for recruiting season

6- have decided for certain I am NOT going to a recruiting fair but have decided to activate my file with a recruiting agency… just to see who bites

7- have booked my flight home for xmas… and special bonus, I’ll then have enough miles to fly home for free in the summer

8- heard from both a former principal and former headmaster who have agreed to be referees for my CV and various school applications… phew!

9- finally not feeling freaked out or overwhelmed by plethora of “world is my oyster” options for where I’ll land next year… am confident it’ll all be good… even if (maybe especially if) I end up landing in my “dungeon” at home 

10- I bought my own copies of season 1 and 2 of Grey’s Anatomy…. my new fav show

Mug Shots

What do we think of the pic? I tried to make it bigger but can’t figure out how. (Ha! I’m like freakin’ Goldilocks -  first the Canadian Ball pic was way too big… then this one is just a tad too small ) I’m considering adding this picture to my CV and the applications for new schools that I have on the go. It seems weird to me to add a photo, and I can hear human resources expert Beckett telling me that an employer legally can’t hire based on what a person looks like… but right or wrong, submitting a photo with one’s CV is becoming an expectation in the overseas teaching world. So does the picture say hire this girl, she rocks?

Offering My Fate to the Universe

I have some major decisions to make.

I find this overwhelming at times, and often wish that someone could just take over for me and decide which road I should go down. But I know that as soon as I handed over the wheel of the SS Tam (as if I even could) that I’d be jumping right back into the driver’s seat immediately.

 But here’s what I have decided…. at least for now. My philosophy is going to be to “choose the path of least resistance” and be on the look-out for signs the universe sends me. Man does that sound new-agey, but there are many times the signs were right in front of me, telling me to reconsider what I was about to jump into and I ignored them. Without fail it bit me in the ass.

 Then other times, the universe was a slippery lubricant for my endeavours. This happened the first time I decided I might want to consider this overseas gig in February of 2002. In a mere three weeks I contacted a recruiting agency, sent them my file, headed off to a job fair in Carmel, California, interviewed with a number of schools, then accepted and signed my contract to head to Colombia. Wow! Everything just fell in to place without a glitch. Then in November of 2003, after spending a week in the Amazon region of Colombia I rethought my decision to return home at the end of the school year, and then contacted the same recruiting agent. Went off to the job fair in Toronto this time, where my future headmaster just happened to sit at the same table as my then current principal. She said wonderful things about me (for which I paid her handsomely). Then within the next 24 hours, he met me, interviewed me, offered me a contract, and then asked me to be his daughter’s teacher. 6 months later I started my new life in KL.   

So I’ve decided to knock on as many doors as possible, set up as many opportunities for myself as I can, and then throw my cards up into the air and see where they land. 

And to be honest, even though at times this crazy life scares the crap out of me… I can’t wait to see what happens. Right now I have no idea where I’ll be in a year. Will I be in KL? Will I be teaching grade 5? Will I be teaching at all? Will I be in Canada? In the UK as previously desired? Somewhere else?   

But now my big hurdle is… is the agency’s $225 CND fee (which includes entry into a fair, when I really have no desire to go to one this time around) a sign from the universe? I had expected to pay about half this fee to post my CV with them and get access to their job postings.

Hmmm…. what to do?