After all was said and done, I am currently part of the last 50%. I sure as hell hope not to be part of the last 25%. This past weekend, I traveled to Carmel, California to attend my first job fair put on by
Search Associates, a headhunting service that helps international teachers like myself to find jobs. I left Friday morning, got into San Francisco at 10pm, got up the next morning at 4am, drove and got to Carmel at 715am, left Carmel and got back to San Francisco at 1030pm, woke up at 5am and flew back to Bogota, arriving at 11pm. How stupid am I? We'll find out.
Before I went to this job fair I received a ton of info from the west coast representative about what to expect. Part of the information was some statistics: about 50% of the teachers sign contracts during the job fair and another 25% sign contracts within a month after the job fair. (The statistics didn't mention anything about the remaining 25% but I can assume they didn't get jack shit.)
His description of what to expect was right on for the most part and the fair was a good experience. I had a total of 5 interviews and one repeat at the end of the night. Everyone I interviewed with was great; really friendly, positive, up-front and honest. I got good feelings after leaving all of my interviews. But as it turned out, all of the prospective teachers had good feelings after leaving their interviews too. So I really didn't know what to make of it all. The schools I honestly felt Andrea and I had shots at working at were: An American (Christian) school in Seoul, South Korea, an American School in Bahrain, and a new high school opening next year in the Monterey Bay area of California. The recruiter from Bahrain and I got along great and he was my repeat interview. He said all of my answers to his interview questions were right in the sweet spot, there was a middle school science position open for me and he said he would have to figure out a way to employ Andrea because, at this time, they don't have any positions open for PE or Spanish. He would be looking for extracurricular activities for her to teach after school. He also said he would get back to me 'within 48 hours' about whether or not he would employ us. That was 4 days ago. The Monterey Bay school interview also went well (there were jobs available for both of us), but we won't find out anything until the end of March.
So why was it a bad day today? Well, all of these statistics are echoing in my head now. I was not part of the first 50% and I'm beginning to think that I won't be part of the next 25%. I'm hoping my pessimism and stress that I'm putting on myself these days will prove me wrong and I didn't just fuck up our future and I didn't just blow a month's salary on a stressful trip to California.
For some really in-depth conversation, call me! Andrea really needs gringos to talk to, listen to, write to, and read from in order to improve her communication skills in English. The idea is for her to be as fluent as possible before we head off to far away (?) lands. Come on, who wouldn't want to talk to this pretty face?
