Expat Blog Challenge--Day Six: Keep Movin'...Movin' on....

See what I did there with the title, Homegrown Nomad?  Huh?  Huh?  ;)

TGI....T!  Nope, it's not the wrong letter.....not in the Muslim world, at least......and it's officially the weekend!  I'm sitting at home in my comfy bean bag chair (with ottoman....yeah, I know, it's cool) relishing in the delights of candlelight, projected movie on wall with contented children consuming pizza a la "floor picnic," and the warmth of my fave new sweater (navy blue with colored flecks cardigan with shawl collar-kind of neck...mmmmm....).  Yes.  Home. Is. Good.

Of course, as an international educator, "home" is.....temporal.  So, though we have "nested" here in Dhaka and we are at the first part of our 3-ish-year stint here, of course we've thought "big picture" and what that entails for our family....as nearly every expat teacher does.  Considering the litany of changing variables involved in that potentially anxiety-inducing process, we obviously can't make hard-line decisions, so we spend our time thinking about the future in categories.  We typically start with continents......"Well, we haven't done South America or Africa yet....."  Done, of course in our context usually means "lived there for an extended period of time" not "visited"--which is kind of the difference of "acquaintances" rather than "close friends."  The goal of the expat teacher, typically, is to establish a closer intimacy with the world rather than engaging in mere small talk from time to time....  Once continents are pegged, you begin, in two-fold process, listing your networking connections in a variety of countries or what you've heard about an assortment of schools in that region...."Yeah, well, So-And-So's in Senegal right now and they've liked it so far..." and "Yes--well, remember Such-A-Who is in Chile and their FB pictures are breath-taking...."  See, you can't actually plan for the future as an expat educator because you never know what jobs will ultimately be available at what schools at the time you ultimately decide to move on..... So you make lists of possibilities.  It's a bit like playing career-RISK every few years.  You evaluate your strategies and you assess your troop situation in various regions, but ultimately, it's all up to the roll of the dice when it comes right down to it.

So, our little list of options kind of go like this:

1.  We're in Asia, we might as well make the most of it and stay this side of the world for a while.  I mean, we did just ship stuff here....

2.  We yearn for 4 seasons.....or at least SNOW :).  Or, perhaps a job that will pay enough to live in a "summer" climate but where we could travel TO snow for vacations...(that's thinking out of the box!).

3.  I'd like a school big enough to maintain a two-teacher theatre department, but small enough to not keep me buried under a huge class-load.  I need to get my MFA.....!

4.  IB schools are great for my youngest, so I think we'll stay in one for a while.

Other than that, we're all game.  Bring it on, world :).