New news

It's an exciting week! This week I've landed not one, but two new jobs. Two. They're like buses! Sort of.

Firstly, I got promoted at the exam board. I had to attend an interview with them before half term: my first non-teaching interview since 2001. There were some great moments in that interview. Like, at the end, when one of the interviewers told me she used to work at my school. And like when they asked me about the course I took with the board last year:
Interviewer: So, just a few admin questions....did you participate in the xyz program?
Me: Yes
I: And how far did you get with it?
Me: I finished it
All 4 interviewers: *slowly look up at me with incredulity*
I1: Wow
I2: You're the first person we've come across
I3: You'll have to tell us how you managed it

I like moments like that. They feed my hungry behemoth of an ego.

Secondly, I got another teaching job. It's the same as I am doing now but at a school in Bristol. It feels really weird, because I've worked at my school for 13 years and I don't know how I am going to cope with not seeing those people every day. Thirteen years is a long time. BUT I can get the bus every day (more knitting time) and I loved the school, which reminded me of the one I went to, and everybody seemed really friendly. It's very near to some good teaching friends I have in the city too. So exciting. I'll get a discount at yoga for being a city employee.

That interview did my behemoth of an ego good, too. During the interview, the head waved his hand at my application form and said, "I'd just like to unpick you a little, if I may. This is incredibly impressive - you've done this, you do that, you're an x, a y and a z, you advise here, you write that...just, how?" Later, he asked why I was still a middle leader when I could walk a senior post with my experience. See? How could I fail to like somebody that spoke to me like that?

Unusually for a teaching post, I left right after the interview on Wednesday and they didn't ring until Thursday - a delay with references. Mr Z and I were discussing risotto for dinner. I pointed out that we didn't have any wine; he suggested I have a glass of prosecco so he could use some of the open bottle instead. "I don't want to jinx it," I said, "but I could put a picture of it on Facebook and everybody would wet themselves." Then the phone rang. Really spooky.

The past couple of months have been more stressful than I've really cared to notice, but which is probably spelled out by my absence from here. Fretting about the exam board job has gone hand-in-hand with a growing realisation that my time at the school I love needs to come to an end. Consequently, I feel about 10 stone lighter now this is all decided. Terrified, yes, but lifted, all the same. Onto the next chapter.

Throwback Thursday

I had coffee with an old work colleague today, Amanda. She is a very inspiring and wonderful lady. She is still running the Malaysia trip which I did a few years ago. OK, seven years ago, OK? I can't believe it either.

It got me looking at some pictures though.

First, 2009 in KL, outside the Petronas Towers.

Then, 2010, on the beach we went to for the weekend at the end of the trip. This place was idyllic. The outward bound teacher from our host school took us on a surprise trek through the jungle - a risk assessment nightmare, muddy and uneven; all the students were in unsuitable footwear, including me. It was 20 minutes of slip-sliding panic. But then we ended up here. The only people nearby were at the end of the beach rock climbing on the cliff. Just, bliss.

I have a feeling I've shared this before. It's a really happy memory.

Tutt and I have just booked our summer holiday to Vietnam. I'm looking forward to going back to Asia.