You may find yourself in another part of the
world; you may find yourself sitting at your desk in the teacher workroom at
Woodford House and you may find yourself teaching English again and you may say
to yourself, "Well. How did I get here?"
In brief: SWMBO and I returned to Nu Zild from
China in February and waited to hear from my Chinese boss about our pay and
flights and visas and such. And waited…and waited. When it became obvious that
we weren't going back to China (and weren't going to be paid for two months
work) we went searching for new jobs. As luck would have it we were offered
jobs on exactly the same day – mine was Head of English at Woodford House in
Havelock North (a thirty minute drive from Otane) and SWMBO has casual nursing
hours at Waipukurau Hospital (a ten minute drive in the opposite direction from
Otane). I was also offered a position in the Middle East as well, and, although
it was much more lucrative, the words 'permanent full time' tagged to the NZ
job swung the deal.
We wanted to be normal again, you see, and
stability is a condition I have come to yearn for after three years of zapping
around the earth.
Woodford House is a delight too. It's a smallish
school of around 300 girls nestled in the Havelock North hills. It's largely a
boarding school for Hawke's Bay girls but there are some day girls as well from
around Hastings. Class sizes are small! I have 12 girls in my Year 9 English
class! Somebody pinch me (http://www.woodfordnz.com/ for more info on my new school).
Life has been busy with preparing for a re-entry
to the NZ workforce (I started last Thursday), planning to go to San Francisco
for Fanfa's weeding and getting our house sitter out of our house and our stuff
back in.
We gave her a month's notice but things have not
gone smoothly. She initially acknowledged that damages to carpets and furniture
(done by her cats) were her responsibility but she has since refused to pay for
repairs and replacements. During the six months she was house sitting she moved
about two households worth of stuff into and onto our property and that has
taken her weeks to remove. All traces have now been removed!
Sadly that has meant no time for blogging of
late but the A.R.T. room is now looking like my space again and so are SWMBO's
Habibi Stables.
So now I'm back and the normalcy means the
blogging will kick back into gear. Hurrah!!
Love and peace - Wozza