So I was upstairs at my computer researching international schools (I do this every night for at least an hour). This research includes finding out what positions are available, how many students there are, how many nationalities are represented in their student body and staff, how many Americans vs. host country, what extra-curricular activities they offer, if they offer housing, utilities, language lessons, worldwide evacuation, signing bonuses, etc. Doing all this research only further confuses me as I am so indecisive as it is. A few weeks ago I had pretty much decided on four schools-two in Africa and two in Asia- but then I found out that one of the African schools I was interested in won't be at the job fair and the other African school is the lowest paying of all the schools I am considering. Then I found some other great schools in cities I hadn't considered that met my former criteria. So, to make my job fair experience a little more worthwhile, I decided to throw a few more schools into the mix. I am now looking at 8 cities and some of those cities have more than one school of interest. Now, this doesn't mean that I will have eight interviews because like I said, they won't all be at the job fair and even if they are they may not have the position that I am interested in. And even if they
are at the fair and
do have a position, getting an interview is no easy feat. Basically, there are only so many time slots for interviews, so if I am waiting to in line to sign up with one school, another school may fill up all their slots. So, I have to have a prioritized list and then even if I am in line with my top choice, if the line is long I may lose the opportunity to interview at some other schools and even if I get an interview with my top choice school, I may not get an offer! Phew! Clearly it's a gamble and I realize I should have paid a lot better attention in my statistics class!!!!!!
So, basically, it pays to be open; to not have your heart set on one job or one school or even one country. So that is what I have done. But, that said, I do have my top three and am not so secretly hoping to at least get an interview time slot for each of them. Now there is one more component that I learned about that can work to your advantage: getting an email directly from a school head. This means that they are interested in you and *may* give you a pre-assigned interview time. I have gotten one such email. It doesn't a guarantee an interview, cause it was just step one of the screening process for that particular school. The school head asked me to elaborate on my experience teaching reading and writing, what I think about the inquiry approach to learning and my understanding of early childhood years. So I wrote her back and I have yet to hear back. It would be great to know I had at least one interview... keeping my fingers crossed.
So anyways, as I was saying, I was upstairs on my computer the other day and after a couple of hours of reseaerch I decided to go out and pick up some food. I opened the front door and this was attached to the handle.
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Is it a sign?
(By the way, upon further inspection of this menu, I am a little concerned. I mean, we are talking about a top rated international school... I mean what is "Everyday/Special food"? Is it every day or is it special? And what's with the past tense? They don't serve delicous food anymore? And what is "vegetale oil"? Just wondering...)
4 comments:
you know, your mind is a busy place...wow... you have your work cut out for you! This job fair is starting to freak ME out a little.
And vegetale oil is the kind that lubricates the food so that it arrives quickly as junk in the trunk.
LOL!!! crazy lady you are too much!!!!
LOL, too funny!
And I call that a sign.
Hong Kong is a really cool place, I would teach there! Kids are well behaved here, I just have a class filled with special needs student and my school is newer so does not have the resources to help them. The kids are good though... he did flip her the finger behind her back ;) and I don't think he really gets what it means anyway. Good luck!
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