As part of my usual Sunday routine I perused the Independent Schools website and the Illinois Education Job Bank in search of jobs that are in awesome, fun, totally rad cities and that both fit my qualifications and my desires for a job.  For some reason, today I started to feel the crunch.  It’s the end of March and after sending out countless resumes to schools of interest, 3 first interviews, and zero job offers, the panic began to set in.  I am great, my resume is great, but the fact that I’m in Hong Kong serves as both a positive and a detriment to my CV.  I think it makes my background interesting, but I doubt that people are willing to entertain the idea of interviewing someone living overseas.  They can’t see me (Skype is here, people!!), so it’s hard to get a good feel for who I really am.

Panic set in and resume sending was set in motion.  I found multiple jobs that fit the aforementioned and despite a hiccup in the Illinois application system, I applied to many jobs in hopes that someone somewhere will see that I belong there.

After said flurry, I had an interview for a Sassy article that I was writing.  Sitting in the swanky lobby of the Mandarin Oriental I spoke with a nutritionist in Hong Kong hoping to promote her business.  We chatted, I schmoozed, and I lit up.  All thoughts of finding a teaching job escaped my mind.  When I came home my writing fire was at a steady burn and I wrote for an hour straight, enjoying the mental struggle to come up with just the right title (which just so happened to be the US Army tagline, “Be All That You Can Be”), the flow of words coming without even thinking about them, and the satisfaction I got after reading through the article after its completion.

Now don’t get me wrong, I really do like being a teacher, but what if I’m not getting a job because I’m not meant to continue teaching?  I loved getting a free yoga class this week; I love that I got to sit in the classiest hotel in Hong Kong to have an interview; I loved that the questions came so naturally and that the writing flowed so easily; I love the delight in finishing a piece and the grin I get when I reread it; I love that I’m going to India for a free yoga retreat next week.  All because I’m a writer.  This is called passion and this passion made every bit of anxiety about finding a teaching job flee from my brain.

So here’s the plan: keeping searching for teaching jobs and hoping that someone somewhere will notice me, but all the while hoping that that someplace will also have the greatest magazine or website or newspaper that’s willing to entertain my passion for writing.