Excitment and intrepidation!

It is 2011 - a new start for some with New Year's Resolutions being banded about.  Not my thing, but I do feel that this year is going to be a good year.  A year of excitement and new beginnings.

I have been in Birmingham for 3 years now and although I feel quite settled here, it doesn't feel like my permanent home.  I have no ties here - no boyfriend, no mortgage, no family.  Just a few good friends and my job.  I rent in a shared house which I think of as my own but I know that it is not 'mine'.  3 years ago saw me starting a new life for myself in a strange city.  I had never been to Birmingham before and I landed up here after finding a teaching job (and a boyfriend) in the area and thinking that it seemed like as good a place as any to make a fresh start in. 

But now, even though I love my job and I work in a school judged to be 'Outstanding' by OfSted, I feel like it is time for a change.  I am fed up with a run of boyfriends that seem to excite me with possibilities of a future one minute, only to discover that they are not going to stand the test of time.  Life feels like it is stalling a little.  My job is so unique in the set up that I teach in - a Competency based total curriculum where I only teach Year 7 - that I am not getting the GCSE teaching experience I need to become a Head of Geography/Humanities and my current line managers, the Directors of Key Stage 3, seem very settled in their current roles so I cannot see that I could be promoted into one of their roles.

So I allowed the thought of working abroad to take hold in the back of my brain and like a weed it has started to grow stronger and stronger in the darkness at the back there and before I knew it, the thought of leaving the country to go and work in a foreign country had taken hold with deep roots. 

There have been several big mental hurdles for me already - and I haven't even posted off my first job application yet!! The biggest hurdles have been talking to someone who works for International British Schools to start finding out about how to deal with finances, National Insurance contributions, Pensions abroad (as well as my UK Teacher's Pension), tax free earnings, bank accounts, schools and knowing which ones have good reputations and which ones to avoid. It feels like a teaching minefield to me at the moment!

The second hurdle was telling my boss and close friend, Charlotte, that I was considering leaving the department to travel and work abroad.  She was very sad to hear my news but could understand why I was considering it.

And the biggest hurdle so far..... telling my parents!  My friends keep asking me how old I am in a sarcastic manner - I am 27, but totally worried about telling my parents that I am thinking of leaving the country!  For them, it is bad enough that I live in Birmingham and that it takes me between 3-4hrs to get home in the car, let alone being in a different country and being at minimum, a 7hr flight away, plus airport time and transport too and from the airport at both ends of the journey.  My mum still cries now when I leave them to come back up to Birmingham and the emotional guilt I am currently feeling about putting her through this is quite bad.  But I do keep reminding myself that it is my life and that if I don't do this now, then I am less and less likely to do it in the future.  And while I have no ties, I think that it is the perfect opportunity to make my move.   And you never know who I will meet while I am away or what I will see.

I love travelling - I have driven to Mongolia from London in a Fiat Panda 3 years ago, and last Christmas I did a very similar thing, driving from Dakar in Senegal to Cameroon. Foreign countries don't scare me and I love being emersed in another culture away from all the tourism. I am really hoping that I can be brave enough to do this, to move away on a 2 year contract to a foreign country.   At the moment, I am thinking that Qatar is my best option with the other options being Hong Kong and Thailand.

So, this evening, along with beginning to write my first international application form, I have also ordered a book from Amazon - Qatar: the complete resident's guide. Bring it on!  I am going to be an expat!