Category: personal

At the end of August I will be taking up a position as a Y4 teacher at the British School in Alexandria. It has taken over three years and a distance of 36,000 km to get here but I am excited to be finally walking into my own classroom.

I am disappointed that I wasn’t able to secure a position in Whitehorse but the situation there is no better than elsewhere in Canada and I couldn’t wait around for several years waiting to get lucky. It is I suppose a good thing that teaching is a desirable profession in Canada, well paid and well respected. Teachers aren’t overworked and for the most part are able to retire at a relatively young age. It’s a very different situation in the UK where successive governments have seemingly broken the system and where almost half of the teachers teaching would leave the profession if they could.

With my new job it’s a good time to try revive my blog, which hasn’t seen a post since the beginning of March. It will be my intention to post at least once a week. Not sure how that will pan out with the new job and a new home in a new country but I will try my hardest to make a weekly post happen.

The end of another year. It’s been a bit of an odd one. On the plus there’s the fact we are, for the first time in a long time, financially solvent. Christa has been working hard at PR Services and I have been an itinerant worker for the department of education and helping out at the swimming club. The beginning of the year started wonderfully with the acquisition of my teachers’ certification. Our little guy is coming on in leaps and bounds and Maggie keeps us amused and frustrated in equal parts.

But on the other hand,  I am frustrated and worried that I won’t be able to get a full time teaching job up here in Whitehorse. The lack of a full time job makes me feel like I am standing still both professionally and personally. We want to stay here but the reality is I don’t have years to wait, I’m conscious of the clock ticking, so to speak. That said it’s one of the great things about life, you never really know what’s around the corner. Sometimes it’s just a matter of waiting and seeing. 

So let’s hope that 2016 is good year for us all. As a family, we’ll be taking the bull by the horns and shaking them. We’ll see what happens. Happy New Year to us all.