It is now less than a month before I move to Dubai! Who would have thought this would be happening? Less than a year ago I was feeling a little lost and helpless as to where my life was going just because I hadn't yet landed a teaching job or what I thought of as a "real" job.
Last fall I went to the IAHPERD conference with some pretty great people! (Shout out to Mary O'Connor, my wonderful cooperating teacher at Merrill during my student teaching.) I met tons of wonderful physical educators there, and one of them told me about an overseas teaching fair at UNI. When I got home I registered for the fair.
Once I registered I checked pretty much daily for new PE openings all the way up to the fair in February. The fair was quite crazy. I had ten interviews scheduled in two days! At the beginning of the fair they day "don't over schedule for interviews." Well, I definitely over scheduled for interviews because I WAS NOT leaving there without a job!! It took place between the convention center and the Ramada hotel. They are connected by skywalk and I was sprinting from the basement of the convention center, up the escalators, across the skywalk, and then up the stairs to the floor I needed to get to.
My first offer was for a HS physical education position in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. After this initial offer, I still had an interview. I then had to go check with all the schools I had not yet heard from to see if they were going to give me any offers. At this point it was Saturday around 5 pm and I was running on caffeine and adrenaline.
I got to the room for Universal American School-- Dubai. The director told me to wait out in the hall because he was currently meeting with another person. I was unsure what he was going to say because initially he seemed quite unimpressed with my lack of experience and at first I didn't even get an interview. He then ushered me in his room and said he was impressed with my confidence and my enthusiasm when I talked about teaching, then he offered me the elementary PE position! I was so excited that he was laughing at me.
Anyways, I accomplished my goal and now have my first full-time teaching job doing EXACTLY what I wanted!!
