Late November, God willing.
Two things about that.
Late November
Which is about as spontaneous as one can really be for a trip like this. I have to send paperwork to Zambia, which must be processed and sent back to me, so I can apply to the Zambian consulate for a visa, which then needs to be sent back to me before I can go. Then there is the non-trivial matter of intersecting the right plane ticket with the right amount of money in the bank...
But importantly, I am leaving behind a job that suits me very well — curriculum coordinator at Virtual High School. I've very much made this job my own, and have endeavoured these past two years to shape our teaching and writing to reflect excellent research and state of the art pedagogical best practices. Steve, my boss and good friend, and I agreed that we would be able to make the transition into new staff as smooth as possible if I stayed for long enough to help with training folks to replace me over a couple of months. I believe strongly in what we are doing at Virtual High School, and I want to be able to provide this service.
The implications of deciding to leave my niche job, and the way in which it is viewed by people who love me, is the subject of further reflection. Stay tuned.
God Willing
I learned along time ago that it is a dangerous folly for one to define oneself by hopes and plans and ideas about the future. I didn't need to have that proposition violently reinforced these past years. The lesson was quite lost on me. All that happened was a stoking of my indignant belief that whatever else may or may not be true of God, or whatever it is that orders and disorders the universe, planning makes that force furious. I suspect that there is nothing more evil and assured of retribution that we can do in this life than to set our hopes on someday, and there is nothing more good and right and true than now, and every experience in my life backs me up.
So the end of November, yes, God willing, and I acknowledge that I would go tomorrow if I could and if it wouldn't negatively affect others, but I am resisting all temptation to look forward to the journey. It will happen. Or, due to an unimaginable circumstance, it won't. I have no ambition to be either disillusioned or disappointed, so I am doing what I do best, which is focussing on today. A part of today involves getting the paperwork in order, and it involves doing a little writing and reflecting so that folks know what I am up to. It involves leaving VHS in good shape for my departure. It involves making sure I see as many of the people that I want to see as I can do. It involves saving money at every turn, which is a new trick for me. Those are all things that I can do today, but they are in service of today, because this preparation exercise itself is interesting and fulfilling and amusing. The today I have spent, which I shaped as I did because I was inspired by something I saw on the horizon, was still itself fully today. I am not living and will not live for the future.
Having said all that, I will licentiously contradict myself by restating something that I told a good friend earlier this evening. If you consider it deeply, though, you will see that it is no true contradiction, and it is this: that I am more relaxed than I have been in a while because I see an end in sight; and it's making me panic a little bit, and it's making me scared a little bit, and it's making me grieve a little bit, and I'm just a little bit lost without those sick muses urging me on.
Two things about that.
Late November
Which is about as spontaneous as one can really be for a trip like this. I have to send paperwork to Zambia, which must be processed and sent back to me, so I can apply to the Zambian consulate for a visa, which then needs to be sent back to me before I can go. Then there is the non-trivial matter of intersecting the right plane ticket with the right amount of money in the bank...
But importantly, I am leaving behind a job that suits me very well — curriculum coordinator at Virtual High School. I've very much made this job my own, and have endeavoured these past two years to shape our teaching and writing to reflect excellent research and state of the art pedagogical best practices. Steve, my boss and good friend, and I agreed that we would be able to make the transition into new staff as smooth as possible if I stayed for long enough to help with training folks to replace me over a couple of months. I believe strongly in what we are doing at Virtual High School, and I want to be able to provide this service.
The implications of deciding to leave my niche job, and the way in which it is viewed by people who love me, is the subject of further reflection. Stay tuned.
God Willing
I learned along time ago that it is a dangerous folly for one to define oneself by hopes and plans and ideas about the future. I didn't need to have that proposition violently reinforced these past years. The lesson was quite lost on me. All that happened was a stoking of my indignant belief that whatever else may or may not be true of God, or whatever it is that orders and disorders the universe, planning makes that force furious. I suspect that there is nothing more evil and assured of retribution that we can do in this life than to set our hopes on someday, and there is nothing more good and right and true than now, and every experience in my life backs me up.
So the end of November, yes, God willing, and I acknowledge that I would go tomorrow if I could and if it wouldn't negatively affect others, but I am resisting all temptation to look forward to the journey. It will happen. Or, due to an unimaginable circumstance, it won't. I have no ambition to be either disillusioned or disappointed, so I am doing what I do best, which is focussing on today. A part of today involves getting the paperwork in order, and it involves doing a little writing and reflecting so that folks know what I am up to. It involves leaving VHS in good shape for my departure. It involves making sure I see as many of the people that I want to see as I can do. It involves saving money at every turn, which is a new trick for me. Those are all things that I can do today, but they are in service of today, because this preparation exercise itself is interesting and fulfilling and amusing. The today I have spent, which I shaped as I did because I was inspired by something I saw on the horizon, was still itself fully today. I am not living and will not live for the future.
Having said all that, I will licentiously contradict myself by restating something that I told a good friend earlier this evening. If you consider it deeply, though, you will see that it is no true contradiction, and it is this: that I am more relaxed than I have been in a while because I see an end in sight; and it's making me panic a little bit, and it's making me scared a little bit, and it's making me grieve a little bit, and I'm just a little bit lost without those sick muses urging me on.
Vance,
ReplyDeleteI'm very intrigued as to why you are going to Zambia? I love reading your reflections on living today as opposed to overplanning etc. I can very much relate to those last lines you wrote about feeling more relaxed and panicking, fear. I felt the same way once I decided to follow my dreams and my heart finally and move my life to Quebec. I just had the feeling for the better part of this year that everything was going to work out splendidly and that the universe was welcoming me to open up to the possibility that there was more in store for me and more personal and professional opportunities and perhaps growth. What a glorious feeling (though scary) it was to let go of the 'niche'. All the best and keep enjoying every moment.
Hi dd,
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing. I am going to Kibombomene, in the NW Province of Zambia, to assist the efforts of Same World Same Chance (http://www.sameworldsamechance.org) in developing high school program for the village. This is a capacity development project; the Zambian board of directors is the driving force, we are recruiting Zambian labour and management wherever possible, and we aim for independent sustainability in all that we do.
I also lived in Québec for a year, and I loved it! I'm daily confused that I don't still live there. The whole province is beautiful and the culture, that splendid dance between the spirit of les habitants and the vanguard of la révolution tranquille, with songs of the Algonquin for those of us especially lucky, should be lived and breathed by every Canadian, if just one time.
— V