The Adventure Begins

April 21, 2014

Three months from now we will be flying to the Philippines  

on our fourth anniversary

to live and teach for two years

with our daughter, who will be one week shy of a year old.

Two months ago, my husband, Michael, and I were in San Francisco at a job fair for international teaching.  I bought my first true pair of pumps for this event, if that tells you anything. 

The night before we left for the job fair, we Skyped with the director of Brent Int’l School in the Philippines.  It wasn’t an interview per se, more of him telling us of the school and essentially recruiting us.  The whole time, he only asked one question: “Michael I see you played baseball, will you tell me about that?”  At the end of our time he said, “Just to be clear, this is a formal job offer.”  The positions were for middle school math (Michael) and middle school science (me).  We were stunned at how it ended, especially since I have never taught middle school and never taught strictly science and not one typical interview question was spoken.  But talk about having a positive mindset for the job fair – we were set!  We were given until the end of the fair to make our decision.

Prior to all this, we had been sending off cover letter after cover letter to international schools across the world, totaling approximately fifty in all.

We had several other interviews via Skype (the first of which was undeniably awful – sorry to waste your time, Singapore) and several face-to-face at the job fair (Morocco, Ecuador, Colombia).  Most of these were as a couple, which was extremely awkward the first time (Singapore) but eventually became comforting and reassuring.  

Our house is very spartan as material goods have been sorted, packed, given away and discarded.  Furniture has been sold.  I counted today and we are down to seven items of furniture (couch, beds, dining room table, desk, bookshelves).

We are selling our house we have lived in for almost six years and have, in fact, signed paperwork.  We have a bit of seller’s remorse.  Actually more like price remorse, wondering if we could have gotten more.

Our cars are next up on the market.  

Friends are adopting various items as well - bikes, plants, odds and ends.

This was not a decision made lightly and is something we’ve wanted to do for years.  We began the process last year but found out we were pregnant (!!!!) and our daughter was due in August, when schools start.  Thus we postponed until this year. 

It is quite the roller coaster of emotions: one minute feeling pride for taking this leap, the next questioning everything; getting excited for new adventures and growth, scared of leaving our comfortable life here; thinking we are amazing parents for giving our daughter this experience of a lifetime, wondering what the hell we’re doing traveling across the world to live for two years…