Birthday on the Other Side of the World

1: Mom, I don't know if you read my blog, but I just want you to know I think about you a lot and I miss you. I hope that you are well and that your health is good. I hope that the winter hasn't been too cold for you and that I might hear from you sometime. I love you.

2: As some of you may know, my birthday was last week. As a February baby, it's very strange to celebrate your birthday in the sun. And the heat. It honestly didn't really feel like my birthday at all. On the weekend we went and got some Indian food with some of my friends here in Singapore and on Monday my students brought a cake to school which was really sweet of them. Having facebook that students are on, they all knew it was my birthday and I was hearing "happy birthday Ms. Jolley!!!" everywhere I went all week.

The looming question continues to be what do I do next, and I still don't have an answer for you. I know that I like Singapore, I know that I don't like being apart from Ben. I know that I like my job, I know that my job as it is now isn't what I started out wanting to do (teaching drama), I know that there are drama companies I could work with as a trainer, and I know that they also aren't what I'm looking for because I would be working with babies and younger kids. I know that International schools pay well, I also know that most of their hiring fairs were in January and February already.

At my school, people want to know if I'm staying and I can still honestly say I have no idea. I am looking into jobs at international schools, and looking for drama jobs, but I keep seeing mostly english positions, which are still not doing what I want to be doing but that seem like they would be in a more conducive environment to the kind of teaching I like. I know that working at an IB school would be a good next step to develop my resume and get a broader range of experience.

If I had to tell you what my perfect next year would be, it would look like this:

Ben would be in Singapore, or I would be with him in Canada.
I would be teaching drama to an age group I like working with.
I would be making more money than I am now and living somewhere nice and comfortable.

Are all of these things possible? Hopefully, it's just a question of how and what needs to happen to get there. I have options, I can stay with my school until the school year ends, which would take me to November or December, I can finish in June and look for a job that starts in September, I can go home and look for jobs from there or I can stay here and look for jobs from here. Seeing as I have somewhere to live and a way to pay the bills here, here seems like the better idea of those two options.

What I know is that I miss teaching drama like a hole in my heart, and I miss being creative in that way and helping young people to be creative and find their voices. I am still doing a bit of drama here and I am teaching the DEP program at my school, but it's not the same as coming in every day and working with drama as your main subject.

I will keep you all posted as time goes on and options open up. My Dad gave me the good advice that to negotiate a contract I need to be in a position of strength, and that usually comes from having a job. I'm in a much better place here, employed to look for a job than I will be if I go back home and I'm under-employed in Canada and trying to make ends meet. Better to take an opportunity because it speaks to me than because I am desperate. And so I begin.

Also, I am hoping to plan a trip to China in March with Ben, and I'm going to Malacca with my students in March as well, so I will hopefully have some interesting stuff to tell you and pictures to show you all after those two things happen.

For now, I'm super happy to have Ben here with me when I go to sleep at night. That's worth so so much, it's impossible to really explain the difference that makes from 10 months of long distance.