Teach!

The diary's filling up. I'm making a bit of a hash of keeping it neat though. Such is my insatiable desire to squeeze even a small amount of purpose out of each day that, no sooner is a task complete, that I am crossing it out, scribbling over it in a frenzy, demonstrating to the crisp, organised, professional, leather-bound diary that I too am crisp, organised and professional. Although not at all leather-bound. The tasks that are causing such chaos across the pages of my diary are many and varied. They are generally intimidating imperatives written to myself in a threatening tone. 'Email so-and-so', 'Research this', 'Phone them', 'Check this', 'Check for reply to previous email'. And so on. They began as fairly logical demands, which were focused on obtaining the great job. However, as the replies trickled back (or, in some cases, got lost in the ether) panic crept in and these bullet-pointed daily demands began to take on a life of their own. They have begun to branch out, forcing me to consider alternative lines of work.

A recent demand I made of myself was: 'Research teaching'. Teaching, I convinced myself, was essentially journalism. It communicated information to other people. Reaching this profound conclusion cheered me up for a whole day. I saw an ad in the paper a couple of weeks ago - one of those adverts showing a smiling, relaxed youngish looking person with the word creative positioned somewhere nearby in a sort of speech bubble. All that was required of me was to text my email address to a very short number and someone would get in touch. So I did. And they emailed me. I wasn't sure who 'they' were to start off with but I was soon to find out.

A couple of days later, back on the trail of the dream job and having forgotten all about my brief foray into the unchartered waters of teaching, I was clutching at yet another media straw and sending an email to someone I didn't know, when my phone rang. Withheld number. Ominous. I picked up, effecting the most professional tone I could muster. Well, you never know, I thought. Can't afford to be caught off-guard with a disinterested I've-just-got-up tone of voice in the middle of a job-hunt. It's funny how, on an unemployed good day, any chance phone call, email, meeting in the street becomes a source of infinite career potential. And on a bad day, well, you're grateful to be able to google your own name, just to fill the minutes. So, I picked up. "Hello?" I said, in such a self-assured tone of voice that I surprised myself. Still got it, I thought. "Hello," said the lady. Now, this wasn't the kind of hello that I had offered up. This was the kind of soothing hello that made you want to curl up and fall asleep. Who WAS this? I wondered. Trisha Goddard? Or just God..? "You ticked a box to say that you would like to be contacted by a teaching careers advisor about moving into the teaching profession?" I thought. Frantically. Shit, I couldn't remember ticking a box but I really didn't want this woman to go. She sounded like she could help me. "Ah yes," I said. "I did." "I was just checking that you received the email I sent last week, asking if there was anything you wanted to discuss regarding going into teaching..?" Shit, I remembered this bit. I'd ignored the email which was simply entitled 'Teach'. No question, just teach. Just the title scared me off. "Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I've just left my job and I've been running round filling out applications and I haven't had time to go through my emails properly." What?? Have I suddenly been transformed into the web-of-lies-spinning-spider?? I check my emails every day, at least five times. Ok, many times during five separate sittings. "Oh, don't worry," she replied, sounding disappointed but unsurprised (she sounded as if she had received a lot of desperate registrations to this teaching information service from newly unemployed graduates, hoping that one text could hold the key to their next career move). She was about to wish me all the best for my career and disappear forever when I spluttered and spewed the following: "...But if you're free now it would be great to talk through some of my options..." Was I trying to buy a credit card? A mortgage? What, therefore, were 'my options'? Surely you either want to be a teacher or you don't? What did I expect her to say? 'Well, what you can do is try teaching for a few weeks, get paid for it and in the meantime look for that media job you want'. No, there were no such options. Nor should there be. "I left my job as a journalist in November and I'm just trying to look at other areas I might be able to go into..." And that was it. She was hooked. She began talking through training, experience...and other things of which I have no recollection. I drifted off. Her voice was like a glass of red wine mid-afternoon. It made you feel relaxed, and sort of sleepy. Like aural massage. "So have you been into a school yet..?" "What? (waking up) Oh a school? Erm, well, no not exactly."

The words 'not exactly' were about right. I had been into a school. My old secondary school. To give a talk. I was offered up by a well-intentioned friend of mine as an example of a successful ex-pupil. I was wetting myself. I had to talk about my rise up through the ranks of journalism to the dizzy heights of a national newspaper. I felt like a criminal walking in there that Tuesday evening two weeks ago. But I went through the motions. It began with sherry with the governors (I had an orange juice in an effort to maintain a dignified, professional appearance but, on reflection, simply looked like someone who didn't trust herself with a drink). The governors sneered, firing accusatory glances at me over the rims of their sherry glasses. 'What's SHE doing here in the SHERRY room? What has SHE done to earn a place in THIS room?' But I pulled it off (the talk and the sherry room) and, to be honest, it went a long way to re-fuelling my sluggish supply of self-confidence.

Not sure this is what the softly spoken careers lady meant though. "Oh well, you need to be getting some experience in a school first, really." "OK, sounds great, I will." The words fell out of my mouth. "OK, well I'll go away and look up that thing I said I'd look up for you and I'll drop you an email when I've found it." What had she said she'd look for? God, I'm a bad person. And she's going to the effort of emailing me the answer to whatever it is afterwards! Oh the heavy burden of guilt! "Great, thanks so much for your time," was my feeble response to her efforts. And she was gone. God, or whoever it was. If that's what teachers are like then it wouldn't be the worst thing...