A good hand shake

I am sitting in BWI, waiting for the first leg of my flight that will take me away from the USA.  Soon, I will be an immigrant.  Here is how it happened:

In 1997, I studied for 6 weeks in Cambridge and, though I loved the experience, I thought I would never return.  In 2007, I visited London for a week by myself and fell in love with the town.  In 2008, I returned to London briefly before exploring Central Europe, and I realized that I felt right at home.  In 2009, I explored much more of Great Britain, and I was hit by a serious desire to move there.  In 2012, I met Alom Shaha and Ronan McDonald, crashed their party for their A level students, and I discovered aspects of the UK school system that made me want to join it and learn from it.  I admitted to my friends and family that, if I ever became dissatisfied with my job at NHS, I would try to move to England.  Nowhere else interested me as much.  Nowhere else felt like home.  Perhaps I'll elaborate on that later.  For me, "stay at NHS" and "move to England" were the only two choices I wanted to pursue.

In July 2011, I got a new boss.  I tried everything I could to develop a working relationship with her, but to no avail.  Perhaps I'll elaborate on that later.  By February 2013, I realized it was time to seriously evaluate my options.  Alom pointed me toward www.tes.co.uk, where I could find job postings in the UK. I decided to fill out a few applications, perhaps 15-20.  I got no responses. Not a single one.  But, I did start to see what was available, and it helped me get my resume up to date.  Plus, filling out applications calmed me down a bit.  So, I filled out a few more.  This time, I got a response from the King Alfred School.  They were willing to interview over Skype, which I was afraid no one would be willing to do.  The interview went very well.  The school looked incredibly interesting.  It was a private school (they call them independent schools in the UK), it emphasized informality (students calling teachers by their first names would take some getting used to), and it was right in London.  I thought I was in.  Alas, I didn't get the job.  They told me it was a close vote, but they had to go with the candidate that was already in the UK.  Fair enough.  I was disappointed and invigorated at the same time.  This wouldn't be easy, but moving to the UK now seemed like an attainable goal.  I started filling out applications everyday.  It took 25 applications before I got my first interview, and it took another 40 before I got a second.  I was actually offered a job at an inner city public school near Wembley stadium.  I turned it down.  Wrong school, wrong salary, wrong situation.  I did wonder, though, if I would ultimately have to take that kind of a job and pay cut in order to make this move. I wouldn't move my home just to hate my job, though.  So, I kept writing.  I started looking for maternity cover jobs to get my foot in the door.  I filled out 110+ applications.  I received a lot of "we regret to inform you" emails, and I received even more silence from ones that just said "if you haven't heard from us by a week past the closing date, assume you have not been short-listed for an interview."

When May came around and my seniors ended their last day of school, I started making plans for next year.  Job openings weren't popping up with much frequency anymore.  I revised my cover letter to emphasize that, although I lived in the USA, I would fly over for the interview if offered one.  If that's what it took, so be it.  On Friday May 9, I saw a posting from King's Ely, an independent school an hour north of London.  The position was much more attractive than most others being posted so late, so I applied.  The following Wednesday, they called me.  That was a first.  They wanted to interview me via Skype and wanted me to film a lesson that I might post on YouTube for them.  Patrick Geneva helped me out with the filming, and I interviewed on Wednesday May 22.  An hour after the interview, I got another email from Sue Freestone, the headmaster of the school, asking to speak with me personally.  We Skyped the following day.  We determined that each other was quite serious about this, but I needed to visit in person, tour the school, interview again, and even teach a lesson.  Personally, I needed to figure out if I wanted to move my life to Ely, so I needed to see this place.  They agreed to spot me half the air fare, and I flew over on Saturday June 1.  On Sunday June 2, I met Ian Young, the assistant head master, at the Ely train station.  I explored Ely all day with the most beautiful weather I'd ever experienced in England, and that evening I had dinner and beer with Ian.  On Monday June 3, I joined the school for a service in Ely Cathedral, toured the grounds with Ian, met Ned Kittoe (Head of Physics) and toured the labs, met the gorgeous physics teacher whose position was opening because she's moving away to marry, paused to lament that I would not be working with this beautiful British physics teacher, interviewed with Sue Freestone, taught my lesson on sound waves to a sweet group of Year 9 students, had lunch with the science department, and returned to my room to contemplate the decision I was about to make.  It didn't take long.  I'd been thinking about this for months, I'd thoroughly researched the school and the town, and I knew this was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up.  I went downstairs to Sue's office, she offered me the job, I accepted, and we shook hands while smiling.  

Years of dreaming, months of applying, weeks of researching, all leading up to a hand shake.  I hope everyone gets a chance to have one of those hand shakes.