I am about to finish the first semester of my final year at the University of Melbourne. I'm feeling incredibly excited, but also shitting myself a little bit. I need to go out and be a real person! Scary thought.
Most people in my course are beginning to put together teaching portfolios, resumes, and so on, getting ready to dive headfirst into the world of Primary School teaching. Lecturers are kind of taking it for granted that we will be Primary Teachers, or at least Kindergarten Teachers.
To tell you the truth though, I don't really think I want to be a Primary School Teacher. Not yet, anyway. I've been in the school system in one form or another for the last sixteen and a half year. At the end of this year, it will be seventeen years in total. Thats a fucking long time.
So really, I need a break. I need at least a gap year, maybe longer. I also need to leave Australia. I've lived here almost my whole life, with the exception being the time I lived in the Netherlands as a child. Living abroad has always been the dream, and if I don't do it now, I am so scared that I will fall into a career, and then be thinking 'what if I had moved' for the rest of my life. Teaching also seems to be very easy to fall into, you get into a school, save up some money, buy a car for convenience, figure "one more year to save some money", meet someone, think of buying a house, starting a family, and before you know it you are 50 years old and thinking back to the time when you were still young enough to move countries just for the sake of moving.
Well fuck that.
One way or another, I am leaving this country, preferably to head back to the Netherlands. I think the best option at the moment would be becoming an au pair. I have a mate who did that first year out of high school, in Germany. He sent me this link: http://www.facebook.com/l/738fc;www.aupairworld.net
So far it seems pretty damn good! Plenty of options, they are not all asking for females (as so many ads do) and it looks like being able to speak fluent English and Dutch is a helpful skill to have. Having a Bachelor in Early Childhood Education probably makes me a little overqualified, but it can't hurt, right?
Lots of them seem to be 'live in' positions as well, which I think would be best. I am already a morning person, so getting up early, getting breakfast ready, getting kids off to school or nursery or wherever they will be going sounds pretty great. It seems like most leave a reasonable amount of time for small trips, so it would be easy to visit friends and family I haven't seen in years.
I must admit, looking through the website was getting me pretty excited. My little brother has worked at Aldi for the last year or so. He has finished high school, so that and playing with his band is pretty much his life. I'm pretty jealous! No assignments, no studying, no job to take home. His free time is his, and is not spent constructing lesson plans, or cutting out fucking complex art activities for the children to work on the next day. One day I might be ready for that, but not yet. I want to be free, to have a job that is one-on-one with some kids, and that I don't have to constantly think about in my downtime. Nannying seems like it could be that job!
It felt great last year, when I got round to renewing my Dutch Passport. Just seeing that little box "Nationaliteit: Nederlandse" (Nationality: Dutch) felt amazing. It made finishing up and leaving seem so much more real than just an idea. Last week I voted for the first time in the Dutch elections (for the VVD, hopefully they do a good job for the economy) and that made me feel active, part of the Netherlands again. Looking through these job listings, seeing the end of the year coming up, planning to begin saving, it's all making it feel real again.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, and I am truly looking forward to reaching it.
