Travelling teacher

So it's now three weeks into the new year and I've made it through two and a half weeks of school. It's Saturday morning and it's raining outside. My feeling of epic drowning has moved into more of a semi-floating, semi-flailing phase, and I'm hoping by the end of next week to have made it to some kind of semi-swimming state, so things are looking up. I was quite excited to have four days in a row of (mostly) blue sky this week, and it was nearly not dark when I walked home at 5pm yesterday evening, the weather seeming eager to prove a similar point.   Three things I've realised over the last couple of weeks: I'm not in the privileged majority for the first time in my life. What I have experienced I am sure is mild in comparison to the experiences of many others, and it is in most cases so subtle an onlooker would miss. The easiest way to explain it is that I find myself fighting for things which in the past were givens, and justifying choices w...

Hope. It's a funny ol' word that stirs up varying emotions in different circumstances. Though some may call it wishful thinking, for me, Hope has often proved herself to be one of the most powerful little words in my possession. The instant her presence is noted she cannot be wished away. Instead she transforms the outlook of everyone and everything she comes in contact with. Without a single iota of change to a situation, she appears and switches up entire atmospheres. She embodies life, invokes courage, empowers change. As you might be able to tell, I'm quite a fan of hope. However, of late, I've found her quite elusive. It's been a rough week. Through a combination of events that were no one's fault in particular, I've been dealing with the challenge of adjusting to a new curriculum in a new country with vastly difference procedures, systems and approaches to doing things from how I am accustomed. I have 200 students' names to learn, ...

The train is off, and with it so am I. To my left the spires of Edinburgh Old Town architecture, to my right, miles of farmland, browned by the Scottish winter. Goodbye, Scotland, it's been a treat. I went for a wee bus ride or three this morning, down to the port town of Newhaven, where I was all but blown over by the wind. Nevertheless, it was a journey well worth it, the Scottish coastline proving itself to be as romantically inclined as literature would suggest. Weather-wise, Scotland has quite lived up to its rainy reputation, my two days here filled with a mixture of wind, rain, and snow. Despite all of this, the sun seems to have decided to mock me, breaking through the clouds and shining in my eyes as I write this. It has been a strangely familiar experience, where I feel almost at home, I'm not sure exactly why. I've been trying to logic it away, but the climate, the landscape, the architecture are all so different from kiwiland so I'm putting it down to Scot...

So it's Day One (well kind of Day Two) of my adventure and I'm two hours from London - flying over Austria actually, though you wouldn't know for all the snow clouds. At 38000 ft, it's -62°C outside. Highlights so far have been the 20Mb of free WiFi on each flight, exploited satisfactorily I might add, and the plane's outside cameras, genius idea thanks Emirates. Low light was definitely the flight attendant spilling juice all over me without realising (I do quite well enough at spilling food all by myself without needing assistance, thanks very much). Watching three fighter jets flying past leaving a jet stream miles behind reminds me once again that I'm in Europe for reals and it's finally starting to all sink in. This world is a bunch bigger than lil old New Zealand. All of a sudden these places which have been map locations and Wikipedia pages are about to become real actual places with memories attached - here we go!