Whilst all around me were out partying and seeing in the New Year, I was curled up in the lounge with a miserable chest infection on 31 December 2007. I do not know if it was the fact that I was ill or simply that I could not bear the prospect of spending another year doing the same job, listening to the same childish whining, putting up with the same finger-pointing blame culture, the same gossip mongering and the same uneducated, ill-informed criticism that I have had to tolerate for the last five years, but, whatever the reason, I decided that enough was enough. I made a promise to myself that the next New Year's Eve my life would be very different…
I have always wanted to travel. In my younger years it was the adventure and the opportunity to escape from an area that offered me no career options that led me to quit my job in Somerset to take up a position in Australia. Before I could emigrate I needed to sell my house to raise the necessary cash to get out there. It was keenly priced to sell, the housing market was on the up in 2000, and so it did not take me too long to get an offer on my house. Everything was looking rosy and on schedule for the required start date until, at the last minute, my buyer pulled out. I had previously refused a higher offer, because I do not agree with the practice of gazumping, but look where my principles had got me. The house did not sell in time, the position in Australia went to someone else and I ended up going to work in London instead.
Contrary to the phrase, it's funny how time flies when you're not having much fun. Because that was eight years ago and I can count just one holiday in all that time. Quite why I have been wasting my life as a wage slave for so long escapes me but the one thing that those eight years have provided me with is plenty of opportunity to reflect upon the state of the complex world that we live in. And let's be honest, it's in a bit of a mess.
So, I want to do my little bit to make the world a better place. I've never been much of a tree hugger, I don't think that I can do a great deal about world poverty, or sort out the troubles in the Middle East, but I can do something that will make a difference to at least some people's lives. And that something is teaching.
Now, I've never really had a great deal of respect for teachers as a breed, in general, nor do I expect that many of those who encountered me during my latter school years would have had the word respect at the forefront of their minds when it came to my end of year reports, but some teachers shone so brilliantly and had such an effect during my formative years that they have instilled in me this desire to put something back. That's why I hope to see in the next New Year in a place called Rizhao, in Shandong province, in the People's Republic of China.
