I'm going back to teaching

For all of 2007 I basically functioned as a "house husband" after I returned from teaching in Griffith. It's had its advantages - not least the time to blog a lot - but I've decided to go back to work.

This decision is not so much an emotional one but a practical one. As many of you know my mother in law is ill with cancer. There's a very good chance that she might die this year. My wife, who has been working at Centrelink as a Social Worker, needs to stop work to care more for her mum.

So, Anna will be finishing up work this Friday, and I will begin - again - a period of "casual teaching" whereby High schools in our area who have sick teachers will ring me up and ask me to work that day. This sort of work isn't always reliable, but as Autumn is around the corner, more teachers will catch colds or go on professional development days and need their classes taken care of.

Today I visited four schools - two Christian schools, a private non-Christian school and a small public school near our home that specialises in children with physical disabilities. I handed over my resume, filled in forms, spoke to people in charge, etc etc. My experience is that once you have taught at a school once and "proved" yourself to the right staff members, you tend to become the no. 1 person they call when they need someone. When I was working like this back in 2002/2003, two schools in particular would call me up. Most of my work would come from these two schools, with one or two others thrown in as well.

Will this affect my blogging? I don't know. Usually if a school rings me up it occurs between 6.30am and 8.00pm, which means that I need to be up and showered by at least 6.30am. I may be able to spend a bit of time blogging in the "early hours" as a result. At night, though, with no lessons to prepare or exams to mark, it will be easy to blog.

So anyway, if people could pray that things work out that would be wonderful!