I suppose that my keeping this journal (or diary or memoir or whatever you'd like to think of it as) is in direct response to both of these dilemmas. Let me explain . . .
First of all, I've always been somewhat of a sleep-procrastinator. Ever since I can remember I have been. There are some people out there who look forward to going to bed at night. But not me. I dread it. But it's not that I don't enjoy sleeping (there's nothing quite like the feeling of getting a good night's sleep), but rather that I enjoy being awake much, much more. Therefore it's my typical habit to find any number of excuses to stay awake as long as possible until I get too bored to carry on, or, what is often times the case, I simply get too tired to keep my eyes open any longer. Keeping a journal addresses this issue in the sense that I can spend my procrastination time doing something that gives me a sense of productivity, unlike the feeling I get after spending it on Facebook or aimlessly perusing the internet.
Second, I'll be in Abu Dhabi in 4 days, there for 2 years to teach English, math, and science to primary school students. I could be wrong, but I think this is what one might call a "once in a lifetime opportunity." Therefore, keeping a record of all my experiences over the course of this trip is important to me.
Third, and what is probably of greatest interest to most of the people who will be reading this (not that my sleep-procrastination issues aren't interesting, right?), is that keeping this journal will give me the opportunity to communicate my experiences and my day-to-day well-being to people back home.
So . . . now on to the interesting stuff. For those of you who don't know, this process of me going to Abu Dhabi began several months ago in March of 2009. I was two-thirds of the way through my first year as a teacher, teaching 2nd grade at a school in Columbia called Derby Ridge Elementary. I became bored one night after school when I remembered that one of my co-workers had mentioned something about his teaching experiences in Taiwan earlier in the day. Therefore I got on the internet and just started browsing different websites that gave information about teaching overseas, with no real interest in doing anything of the sort at the moment. One thing led to another, however, and before I knew it I was on the website for a company called Teach Away, filling out an application. I had no real expectations of ever hearing back from this company, but, like I said, I was bored so why not?
Well, a few days later, I received a phone call from a representative from Teach Away, who wanted to know if I'd ever considered teaching in the Middle East. Caught of guard by the phone call in general, and even more so by this question, I quickly scrambled for the quickest answer I could think of: "Yes, I'd love to!" Oops. To tell the truth, up to that point I had never spent more than 5 seconds thinking about what the real answer to that question might have been. And maybe things were better that way. Over the next few days, I began to educate myself over this Abu Dhabi place, and found that it was in fact a very fascinating place and that I did indeed want to be considered for a teaching position there.
What happened after that was a whirlwind of events. Within 2 weeks of the initial phone call, I had completed 2 phone interviews, flew to Chicago for a live interview, and had been offered and signed a contract to teach in Abu Dhabi for 2 years. Whew! Talk about stressful!
(At this time, I've reached that point where I simply can't keep my eyes open any longer. So look forward to "PROLOGUE -- Part 2" in the near future. Good night!)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment