Monday, November 16, 2009

My goodness it's been a while.

I guess it's been a good 4 months since I last posted. Holy smokes! Where has the time gone? Well, not much has happened, but at the same time, quite a bit has happened.

In the category of not much happening...In my last post (back in August), I was training for Coast 2 Coast, an adventure race that consisted of running, biking and kayaking across the entire northern coast of Trinidad. I was in a 3 man team where I was going to be doing the running legs of the race. However, during the training, I was out on one of the trails that I would be running in during the actual race, and as I was coming down off a rock that was in the middle of the trail as we were going downhill. I jumped down at a slight angle to try to slow myself down and some rocks under foot came loose as I landed and I sprained my ankle pretty bad.

It was swollen for a little over a week or so and I finally went to an orthopedic doctor who took some x-rays of it. He confirmed that it wasn't broken, but it was a Type II sprain. I don't know what that means, but there there are only three types of sprain and I was in the middle. Ultimately, I had to start going to rehab and here I am, 3 months later, still with a swollen ankle and still going to rehab to try to rebuild my ankle strength.

The byproduct of this sprain has meant no ultimate frisbee, no hashing, no running (or training for the half and full marathons down here in Trinidad), no yoga, no hiking, etc. etc. etc. My days have been quite inactive, although I am slowly able to start running on a treadmill now. I'm still in physical therapy and expect to not be fully back to into all of my activities until after Christmas (at the earliest) and most likely later than that.

So what has been keeping me busy is my class load. This year I am teaching two new classes: Pre-Calculus and AP Statistics. Pre-Calculus thus far hasn't been too bad, but in the coming month or two, we will be getting into topics that I was never very fond of when I was in school. So this will be quite the challenge for me, to re-learn it and be able to make it more engaging for my students than it was for me when I was in school. AP Statistics is a very in depth statistics class, and I have been told is more in depth than most college introductory statistics classes. This too has topics that I haven't taught before, but I am really enjoying teaching this class as I find it incredibly applicable to every day life. Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy teaching my other classes as well. I think AP Stats just offers unique content and a unique challenge for me. So it stands out as far as topics and research.

The other thing that has been keeping me busy the last few months is organizing and sorting out my resume and job search. My contract is up this year so I had to get all of this together. I never planned on trying to extend my contract here. As a matter of fact, I had intended to go to some South American schools for a few years, then jump over to Europe (hopefully the UK), and then possibly head back to the states. But some of these plans changed in the last 4 months as well.

As it turns out, when I was back home this summer, Angie and I spent a little time together (and I mean a little - something like 2-3 days). And through the course of those 2-3 days and numerous phone calls and e-mails, we realized that we needed to try to move this relationship forward instead of continuing to put it on hold. So now my plans (and job searches) are focused on England. Angie just started a 3 year contract doing social work in Essex County in England, which is just outside of northeast London. I'll be trying to get into one of the international schools in England. But if that doesn't work out, I'll look to get into one of the local schools. Fortunately for me, there is a shortage of maths teachers in England right now and we are in high demand. So hopefully the job search will be a short and prosperous one. I knew that getting a maths teaching certificate was going to be useful in finding jobs. Here's one time that I actually had some good foresight.

So that's a quick nutshell of what I've been up to. Sorry for those faithful followers of my Gouda Life and who have been really bugging me to update my blog (you three know who you are) and all those other people who also check my blog regularly but haven't been as vocal to me to update. I am hopeful now that I have broken my dry spell of not writing that I will get back into the groove again. We'll see though. It's hard to write and post things when I'm not actively participating in them (Coast 2 Coast, half-marathons, etc.) but rather supporting my friends in them.

Anyway, that's about it for now. Be on the lookout for pictures and stories from my trip to the Bahamas for Thanksgiving. If you don't hear from me before then, you will definitely hear from me when I get back from that.