Finally, A Job!

After the job fair in Atlanta, on Monday, the 3rd of December, I had an interview with the director of Yangon International Educare Center, an International school that teaches mostly Burmese students (but also from around the world) from kindergarten on up to twelfth grade using American standards and curriculum.

The interview went like a cat in water (not the best analogy; I mean, they can swim, but how good are they really?). My head was still swimming from the weekend and countless websites and information from all of the schools, that while on the phone I was trying to separate this school from another. Certainly not one of my best interviewing moments, to be sure. However, between my candor and unmatchable charisma, my non-traditional experience teaching in Ghana, the Alaskan bush, and China, not to mention the rave reviews given by my former employers, at the end of the interview came, "Well, do you want a job?"

Then came too much thinking time as I tried to weigh everything against anything that I could think of and dream up. I worried, then got excited, then worried some more. At one point I was sure I wasn't going to take it, then the next thinking, "How could I not?" It was confusing, and for one of the first notable times in my life, my gut was at a major loss and of no help at all.

And so on the night of the 16th of December and out with Kate, we talked about the job, me picking her brain for the umpteenth time about what I should do. She said that I was thinking about it too much. She could not have been more right. With that I strode down the length of the bar where we were conversing, and decided then and there to get online and agree to take the position. My plan failed fast when the Internet service refused to let me see my inbox, of which lead me to quickly create a mental picture of me beating the computer into submission before I turned my back on it and deflatedly walked back to my stool only to be left with more time to contemplate.

Back at a guy's place, the reason for most of the confusion, I quickly brought up my e-mail, found the letter of acceptance I had up to that point kept in the draft area of my communications, and pressed "send" as quickly as I could before my finger recoiled from the return key with a quickness that no pointer finger has ever known, or so I would like to believe.

I woke up the next morning with an amazing lightness since the interview and felt that the right choice had been made.

Then came dealing with the contract, of which I scrutinized like mad, leaving the director to joke that I missed my calling as a lawyer. I went over everything again and again and asked questions more than once, afraid of missing something or taking sentences to mean something other than it actually did. With the contract came more doubt and uncertainty, my head playing tricks on me and receiving yet again no back up from the gut. Either it has bailed on me temporarily or all of my former instinct that I used to pride myself for having has vanished.

On Christmas Eve, I scanned in the signed contract and sent it into cyberspace, still not sure if the decision was right or not, but feeling that I couldn't wait any longer for my heart and head to be in sync and figure it out.

Now, with each day I become more and more excited about the life that awaits me in Myanmar and all that I will experience there. I already have dreams of visits, some promised by a few, others just mere secretive hopes from my end. It's easier to say I will go for two years this time around, as I'll be back for the full summer in between school years, not to mention both Christmases.

As Kate has said, if life takes me in a different direction in the next few months, well, it happens, and that is okay.

So, for now I'm still waiting and listening for the wisdom of my gut to return to sharing it's fine tuned intuition with me.

Here is the website for the school, which answers a bunch of questions in the Q&A section, not to mention includes a lot of great photographs. I'll be putting up more info on the school, Myanmar, and teaching there in a wee bit, so if you have any questions, e-mail them to me, and I'll get right on them!

http://www.yiec.org/

And now back to awaiting the wisdom.