A thoughtful pause

Much as I would love to be continuing on with the philosophical bent of my life and this blog, it just seems that does not come up as frequently as it once did. Instead, I find myself wanting to keep a record of my more recent efforts to find a job teaching overseas. This has proved to be challenging, not least because of my lack of experience in this area.

It seems every time I get my hopes up about a current opportunity looking my way, be it in Georgia (the Republic, not the state), Mexico, or South Korea, something gets me quite unnerved about what is facing me. It is not that I am afraid of change, or a challenge. On the contrary, I welcome the adventure. However, recruiters and recruiting companies may sound good and seem very genuine, but then there are the reviews. Both good and bad... mostly bad. Then there's the actual schools, horror stories abound there, too. Yet, so many of these people who choose to teach overseas are woefully unqualified (I'm one of them) and looking for an easy way to see the world. Their passion isn't teaching, it's themselves. It makes me wonder how much of these terrible reviews I've been reading I should really believe. I'm trying to take it with a grain of salt, but it's a little overwhelming. So what's a girl to do?

South Korea is actually sounding the most dodgy to me these days. At least the program in Georgia I can excuse simply for going through growing pains. Much as the situation was not sounding ideal--thanks to my friend relaying what was happening as she tried to convince me to join her--I could understand a lot of it and would be far more comfortable dealing with the oddities of a Slavic culture than, say, a country where in the private schools you have the potential to have your passport stolen... by your boss. The Mexican teaching internship I applied for was problematic simply due to my own financial situation, not from any sketchy business that I could detect.

I normally trust my gut, but to be honest, these days I'm not sure my gut knows which way is up. I've had very positive interactions with the recruiting people I've spoken to, yet they obviously need to be able to gain your trust in order to ship you off to one of the schools they work with (for). Who can you really trust?

I applied to at least three different recruiting companies within a day or two of each other. Initially, I only heard back from one. Local, quite small. I appreciated that I had been contacted so quickly and not lost in the shuffle like might be the case with bigger recruitment companies. But, now I can smell the desperation. I was told there was to be a 'screening interview'. Fair enough, I'm hoping these schools want people who actually want to teach, not just able bodies with the minimum requirements. However, that 'interview' turned into basically just a pitch of what he was able to offer me in terms of his services.

Then there was contact #2, they too wished to set up a screening interview. This time I actually had an interview, one that included a role-play teaching exercise. Impressive. I figured they might actually have good intentions based on this. I was told I would hear back from them within a few days regarding whether they were willing to help me or not. I was expecting more or less a simple "yes" or "no" before moving on to the next step: finding a school. As luck would have it, they agreed I was a worthy candidate.... for Chungdahm. Wait... what? I went from screening interview to actual position-finding immediately. I did some digging and found a link between the two. It would seem recruiter #2 works for this school. Not surprising, I suppose. But it does give me pause as to whether this is worth following through with, especially since a lot of the information about the school makes me nervous. Yes, lots of bad experiences, but also a few insights into how the school itself works. Philosophy. Yes. As a method for teaching English to Koreans. Ummm...

Recruiter #3 I've had mixed reviews for from the beginning. Yes, they're big, and there have been complaints about that. But there has also been a lot of people who are seemingly happy with their placements. These guys I've been holding at bay for a bit while trying to figure out what is going on with the other two. I may just see where this goes and maybe I'll get somewhere that doesn't make me cringe, or maybe I'll walk away entirely. ...but perhaps not before testing out one last agency: Teach ESL Korea. All I've found so far on them is a blog detailing one woman's experience with the job search process up until the point of departure. After that, there is silence. So, unfortunately, I'm not sure that she was still satisfied once she'd finally arrived in Korea. If anyone who by chance reads this has any information on Teach ESL Korea as a recruiter, please leave a comment to let me know what you think of them. Good or bad, I want to hear it.

The more I deal with all of this, the more I'd rather deal with trying my best to find a job in Canada, even if that means temping for the next year and a half. Besides, I'm actually rather enjoying my current temp job. It beats the hell out of spending my days at home typing up cover letters and mailing off resumes.

However, there does appear to be a bright spot in all this murkiness: Maple Leaf School in Surabaya, Indonesia. So far, I haven't found anything truly bad about this place. It is run by a woman who is Canadian-educated, if not actually Canadian herself, and goes by the Ontario school curriculum, i.e. no totally foreign concept of teaching to adjust to on top of being in a foreign country.

And now for something completely different... (or, A Confession on God and Destiny)

Very recently I've been remembering certain very striking moments from when I was seventeen and still went to church. This is in part due to some such idiocy my uncle was spewing after Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks back. I haven't been able to get these things out of my mind and I felt the need to share this publicly--for reasons that are beyond my understanding at the moment--rather than in my journal. Forgive me if my thoughts seem a bit scattered, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this.

Probably the one that stands out the most and has created the greatest anxiety in me is from when I was attending some youth church service in the basement one Sunday. During the sermon, of which I literally remember nothing, I felt/heard God tell me that He had big plans for me. What I recall is not just the memory, but the sense of enormity that came with this realization. Now, this scared me then, and, well, it still scared me when the memory so strongly resurfaced again this past month. Why? Because I've been feeling for over a year now like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff waiting to jump. Somewhat of an understandable feeling given that I was about to graduate from university and had to figure out what to 'do' with my life. However, this time the feeling of the abyss came with this memory and the realization that I had to make a decision--and fast--because the edge is fast approaching. I am leaving my job at the end of this year (approximately six weeks from now) and have zero clue as to where I will be next year. Now, I haven't been to church regularly since I was eighteen or nineteen (and even then, I was just going through the motions but my heart was no longer there for so many reasons), but I also have had intermittent check-ups/check-ins with God. In my time away  I have come to certain conclusions about God and what I feel 'Christianity' really is supposed to be (see Repentance and Regret). I know it is not what I ended up with in the year or two before I left church, when I was always miserable and struggling and always without anyone to discuss this with honestly. Everyone seems to plaster a smile on their face and act like life is perfect because God has saved them, but no one talks about the realities of doubt, of frustration.

I was miserable. I know now that I did it to myself (although I feel the church atmosphere did not help). Regardless, I have since been very avoidant of attending church. I fear returning to my private hell. This is where my uncle comes in. We were having a discussion about God after dinner. Both he and my mom attend church, while I do not. I posed a question to my mom: "Do you think God works on you even when you're ignoring Him?" My uncle laughed and asked incredulously, "You're ignoring God?" Well, yeah... kinda. I like God, I dislike church. I've always thought the two go hand in hand and that if I stopped ignoring God, I'd have to actually go back to church which, the longer I'm away, the more the idea becomes anathema to me.

Later on in the conversation my uncle started going on about Jesus returning (and soon). He even gave some idiotic prediction which I had to give a rebuttal to. However, in the process of our argument I got very upset because part of what made me so miserable when I used to go to church was the 'hoping for things unseen', wanting heaven, wanting to go 'home'. I have only this year, after nearly six years away from church, come to a point where I am happy where I am. Yes, I still have dreams of travelling and going to Africa, etc., etc. but I no longer pine away for some 'other' place rather than enjoy where I am right.now. I have peace for the first time since... I don't even know when.

  Anyway, somehow his crazy prediction and my strong reaction against it all only brought everything that has been sitting on the periphery of my life this year right in front of me. I was no longer able to avoid making a decision about God. When I made the decision to end my relationship with my best friend of seventeen years last summer, I felt something I really didn't expect: freedom. I tried to figure out why this was and one of the answers I came up with was that in order for me to change directions (as I so obviously needed to do after hitting my low point weeks earlier), I could not remain friends with her. She was holding me back. She doesn't believe in God, which would not be a problem except that she got very uncomfortable whenever I spoke about God. Not exactly encouraging when I know in my heart that God is still important to me, despite my past and my fears of church. So, I've known for a while that this was something I had to do. It actually goes further back than that, because when I left church it was always supposed to be temporary.

Now, the time had come to make my decision and all I could think of was that 'God has big plans for me'. I also knew that to turn back to God was not going to be a halfway measure this time, not like my previous 'check-ups'. It was all or nothing. Needless to say, while I was agonizing over this I was more than a little bit terrified. I have control issues. I like to have a plan. Or at least know what the plan is. And God wasn't telling.

This internal battle royale also brought up an interesting question: Can you really avoid destiny? And is that even what this is? Maybe I'm crazy, and I'm sure a lot of people will think I am. In any case, I still want to know what these damn plans are and, if it is destiny, well, you can't win against God, so I might as well give in. The big question is, where do I go now?

The Cycle of Violence

Violence breeds violence; and retaliation only fuels the cycle of violence. There is a point where violence is necessary, yes, but if it continues past its purpose, then it really hasn't served its purpose. To stop someone like Hitler, or to end something like genocide takes violence, but afterwards what is left? For a society so ravaged by hate and killing like Rwanda, to continue down that path would be its own destruction. The question is, how do we move on? 

I've been reading a memoir by a man from Rwanda--he fled the country before the genocide, but returned to help rebuild the country--and in his work post-genocide, he came into contact with the mayor of his town who was in one of the prisons Sebarenzi visited. The man was known to have been involved in instigating the killings, but denied it. Sebarenzi gave the man some money for food because he saw what deplorable conditions the prisoners were living in. He says:

It wasn't a heroic gesture. I wasn't trying to prove a point or demonstrate a holier-than-thou piety. In truth, I didn't really think about it at all. I saw another human being in need and offered help--nothing more, nothing less. I knew that regardless of what he had done, I had to help him. I knew that my behavior could not be dictated by his.

He didn't choose compassion, it just happened. But I wish so many more could take his example, myself included. How we act speaks volumes about our character, especially in a situation where the obvious choice seems to be hate.

When it comes down to it, we're all human.

The Right Conditions

Everyone knows that Hitler was an evil guy who killed 6-million Jews, but not everyone knows what was going on in Germany before his rise to power that created the perfect opportunity for Hitler and World War II. Weimar Germany was in a state of total financial crisis and was looking for a scapegoat. There was a long history of violence against Jews before Hitler ever arrived on the political scene. He told people what they wanted to hear... and he followed through, too.

This came up in conversation with a couple of ladies at work recently, one of whom is originally from Britain. She's been following closely what's been happening with the election there and she was telling me that because of the influx of immigrants (and the social stress that's causing) and the financial crisis, plus a charistmatic leader that the conditions are ripe for another Hitler-type leader. The question is, have we learned anything from history?

All it takes is the right conditions, for enough people to look the other way. How often do we stand up to a bully (our own or someone else's)? It's so much easier to 'go with the flow' than to take a stand, but it's not what will stop a bully ...or violence for that matter.