Tuesday, June 5, 2012

On the Cusp of a New Adventure

Well, I am down to three weeks of school left. The last day is June 22nd. After that I am moving on in my journey of teaching overseas. I have enjoyed living in Malaysia and learning an incredible amount of new things. I have decide for a number of reasons that it is time to move onto some place new. Back in the beginning of January I attended a teacher recruitment fair when I was in Australia. Good way to accomplish two things at once. I have known for a little while where I am going, but just haven't gotten around to writing about it. I had a few job offers, but I chose one in Indonesia. I am moving to Surabaya, so not too far from where I am living now. The culture will be fairly similar, but there will be differences and new things that I will learn moving there. I report to work the second week of July so I only have two weeks in between jobs to move countries, get settled and start work. It will be a fast turn around, so I am hoping things go fairly smoothly and that my excitement overwhelms the exhaustion and stress that I know will come.
Good-bye Kuantan


I am going to continue the tradition I started my first year of trying to spend as many of my birthdays in different countries. The first year was Malaysia, the second year was Singapore and my third year will be in Indonesia.


Surabaya looking out hotel window
I guess I am quite behind in my blog. I see that I didn't even mention my spring break trip. I went to Surabaya over the break so that I could see the city where I am going to be living and check out the school. I flew in Sunday night. On Monday I pretty much just hung out around the hotel and rested since the previous week had been busy with catching up from being gone the week before to the teacher's conference, and getting stuff ready for parent/teacher conferences and then have them that week. On Tuesday I went to the school and hung out most of the day. I got to sit in on classes and talk with some of the teachers I will be working with. Wednesday I went back and did a repeat of the day before getting more information about what to expect, sitting in on classes and talking with people. After school I went with one of the teachers to one of the many malls to check things out and find some places to get different things. Then we met up with another teacher who happened to have come to town to drop off some things and check out the town and went out to dinner. Thursday I took a break and got a massage and just relaxed. I didn't do much exploring as I knew that I am going to be living there and will have plenty of opportunities to sightsee.  On Friday I went back as they were having a professional development day and I participated in that. Saturday I got up and came back to Malaysia. I am glad I was able to go check out the place. Even though I had said yes and signed the summary contract it was still nice to see it before I signed the full contract. It was everything that I expected. I am sure there will still be things that will surprise me, but I feel really good about this next step.
Looking out hotel window another direction at sunset-Surabaya