A war for our concentration

Eight months until my last year in Dubai ends, I desire to remember that finite urgency that once drove me away from British shores.

It was six years ago that I watched on Scarborough beach the finite rolling of water. The autumn air was crisp and clean and the walk interesting. Yet my mind was forlorn. The sadness of lost connections and atrophied ambition made thin insulation against the cold threat of my Western freedoms. I sought connection and love. These were not to be found in a small seaside town in the North. With courage I applied for jobs abroad, I won a position in Beijing. I made an exciting life. I met people. I made connections. With some naivety, I took risks to move with someone to a shiny place of their choosing. It was their desire which I supported, and the acceptance of that was survival. I knew it would be tough and sadly that risk did not pay off. The toughness of this place will pass soon though: I have 277 days until I leave. And I have been here for over 1100 days. This is time to appreciate what I am being taught here.

I am being taught the importance of friends and company, even amongst people whom I might not always seek. I am being the taught the importance of organisation and time, knowing that I need to be wilful over both my time and my actions. I am also being taught the importance of stating my reasons to others. Often I do not have that forum. Giving the world my reasons is a balm to hate and uncertainty. In my current school, I cannot express enough the importance of keep good with the institution. Keeping good with them is often keeping reasons internal. Fortunately, I have done well in my time here; I have been a good man. But there are reasons and perspectives I want to express.

Right now I see a glimpse of me sat in a cottage in the Yorkshire Moors writing next to the warmth of a fire. I have the space and time and courage to write bad fantasy. 

My imagination needs to be nourished. I have neglected my imagination without realisation.

The immediate future needs me to make applications to other places. Teaching abroad offers me a niche that may not last forever. I am 36 and with appreciable savings. Savings that can forge a life in different places. I have no consumer debts. I can make connections again. It is time soon, remarkably soon, to make distinctive choices about how this life might be led. I think I have one more international school left in me before I could really seek something dramatically different. Perhaps that next school might give me that space. Indeed, it might allow me to make that space.

I should write more cohesively about applying.

Essentially, I have my CV and application statements ready. I will tailor them to the school. When the time is right – either a job comes up or maybe in three weeks - I will request a reference to put out feelers via Search Associates. Invariably, my immediate colleagues and the teaching and learning types can always change anyone’s timetable to detriment. That cannot define what we might do. Watching that happen now to two colleagues, I can only be thankful that I currently escape the worst of that brunt.

Attention is the currency of 2018. There is a battle for our concentration and a war for our hearts. For a long time, I have struggled to concentrate. The rhythm of my mind bounds only in the shallowness of digital valleys, distracted by social media and buffeted by reddit. My reading habits have kindled some imagination, but not entirely. And the people I meet are barely writers. 

For the time being, reading more of the books I need is my fitness.

Ultimately, writing more and writing better is what I desire. I am a writer that does not write. I want to meet other writers and to connect with them as well.

And so now I want to write responses to assessment questions and more. To write answers to assessment questions is to improve my reading. It is something that costs little. And it helps the young minds under my charge. 

Two weeks in and seeking to sustain

My ambitions at the start of this year were to read richly and to better balance. I have done this more books read than ever. A Game of Thrones is almost finished. more important still, I have seen good friends, with Sarah being particularly lovely. She is a great boon in my life at the moment, taking me on walks and organising theatre visits. Being with friends and reading more are my ambitions to sustain.

Yet to reduce my loneliness and anxiety, I still work on weekends. I can still work well on Sundays (well, Saturdays here..), ensuring that I have the week ahead planned. Unlike in Beijing, I do not find myself trying to decide tasks for the week ahead. That wasn't good. Instead, I am genuinely planning for an hour or so on Sunday and achieving well. I am pleased with my efforts here and feel them sustainable. Such time, when retrospectively recorded on my calendar, suggests I am working efficiently. The effect of weekend working, of course, is that I feel I have worked too much still.

So working too much is something I want to avoid. I am expert. It is more than time to begin reprioritising my efforts. Admittedly, I am more decisive than before, especially about logistics. This is perhaps the best thing about my current school. It is managed in a way that would be transferable to any institution, a supermarket for example. I am looking forward to being focused on my subject in my new place. And yet... I realise that I can take time to consider my best options. That is a strength and flaw. I consider too much and act too little. 

To be entirely strong I am to see a doctor soon to ensure I am fully healthy. My stomach isn't entirely well. Being better in this will calm my mind.

The difficult spirt of my department continues to irk, and yet I am able to remain removed, for now at least. While last year I said words to someone that suggested it was a difficult year for me, it was more something barren. It was no Hull, it was not degrading and violent. Hull was crushing, and a place that I still need to process. This, at the least, is a place where the people in key roles of leadership disappoint me continually. It is a place in which I have learned how to survive, and one in which I must continually negotiate how to do so. The hostile behaviour of a few has invited the focus of leadership onto them. That is fine. 

The future is brighter than this. I look ahead very soon to working somewhere else. Each day my countdown clocks another day - 297 days. There are only 239 days until Ramadan. I am in a decent position financially and professionally and willing to look at death. My life is finite, and I have made due sacrifices and followed the desires of others. I am better than I was when I arrived; my age gives me a position in my mind and my grey hair thrones most discernably my head. 

And yet most of all I read of love and realise how I want this with wisdom and openness. I seek love and realism. Love for, and against, the cynicism of these people and the mercy of my mind.