Vergebliche Arbeit

I am currently sitting in the local coffee shop, across from my wife who is dutifully marking away under the impression that I am equally dutifully creating a personal teaching statement for my application for the overseas teaching fair we plan on attending at the end of January. Procrastination at its most stealthy, perhaps?

 Overseas, you say? Well yes, teaching prospects in the region have proved very dire, and with the end of my wife's position at her own school looming, we've decided that the only way to make things work career-wise is to seek our fortunes on the other side of the ocean again. Saudi Arabia had its charms last time, and while we won't be returning there, we're definitely open to most other locales.

Concerns that crop up pertaining to this decision include the number of things we'll be missing out over there.

1)  I'd hoped to be involved in some pretty exciting theatre prospects in the coming years (some Sondheim, perhaps some Whedon?), but being out of the country again will effectively put a stop to my having anything to do with them, at least for this half of the decade.

2)  More importantly, the current economic climate had pushed me towards addressing my growing dissatisfaction with my current line of work. It's been quite a conundrum, hunting around for other possible career avenues (Private teaching? Community music organization? Broadcasting? Writing? Accompanying?), but that process will likely be put on permanent hiatus if we're away until my mid-30s doing that very thing I've been dissatisfied with. On the other hand, I haven't yet had a chance to actually run my own real program, despite having three years of full time teaching on top of the monotony of two years supply work (It's ironic that the years of supply work have come after the years of full time, but that's the climate of the education field right now).

So that leaves me sitting here in the coffee shop trying to amass the right combination of Educationese bullshit to put together an effective representation of my teaching philosophy.  It's heartbreaking the amount of effort it takes to condense a communicable discourse of this nature that is only applicable in the context of a job interview.  For all that intellectual exertion in its preparation, one might be tempted to think that the interview was the job itself, but no, the job has little to do with the skills required to get hired to do it.  So lets see what we can do.