I've dreamed of being a teacher since I was 7 years old, it's all I've pretty much ever wanted to do. And in 2011 I fulfilled that dream, completing my Graduate Diploma of Education and qualifying as a High School English and History teacher. And a few weeks before graduation, I got a phone call. Telling me that there was a job for a year in Quandialla for a year, and did I want it? I had no idea where Quandialla was, but I figured a job was a job, it was only for a year and it would be a good experience.
Quandialla it turned out, was a tiny town in Western NSW, about an hours drive from Young. There was about 30 kids in the entire school from Kindergarten to Year 12. I moved out there, moving out of home for the first time, moving four hours away from all my family and friends. It was the scariest thing I've ever done. It was a difficult year, but also rewarding. The kids were great, and I learned a lot, but I was terribly homesick.
By term 3, term 4, I started applying for jobs, knowing my contract was up at the end of the year. Nothing but rejection letters. At the end of last year, I said goodbye to the kids and the other teachers and moved back home. Which is not all fun- it's a long story, but basically my family is living with my grandparents so there's 8 of us in a 4 bedroom house and I'm sharing a room with my 17 year old brother.
And I'm still unemployed. Still getting nothing but rejection letters, which are really feeling like a giant "You suck" from the universe. I haven't been unemployed since I was 16, and that was only a month between part time jobs.
I've got my name down for casual work at almost every school in the local area, and still nothing. Part of me knows that this is only going into week 4 of term, so it's not quite at the stage where heaps of teachers are calling in sick yet, but my self-esteem is still taking a blow, which has never been great with to begin with.
The thing is, many people, well meaning people, keep asking me how the job search is going. A lot. My parents, my grandparents, people at church, Facebook friends, former colleagues. And the more people ask, the more I feel like shooting myself (figuratively). Even worse is when people suggest I simply go back to Woolworths,where I worked for 5.5 years through high school and uni- which was kind of the point of uni, so I wasn't going to be a checkout chick forever.
I just... I feel stuck. And depressed. And thoroughly discouraged. Now I'm wondering if I'm truly meant to be a teacher after all. Otherwise, wouldn't I have a job? And I
am trying. But the thing is- uni spends a whole year trying to tell us how to teach. But they wait until the last day to give us a 20 minute talk on how to apply for jobs? And that's not even taking into account what I've been learning recently- that every school, every panel, every person going through the piles of job applications every time they want to hire someone- is looking for something different. And they're not going to tell you what they want. You apparently have to guess, or read minds.
I am depressed. I am stressed. I don't sleep well. I cry a lot. Over everything. I pretty much only eat when I feel really sick because I haven't eaten- not because I'm starving myself or anything, I'm simply not hungry and forget to eat. And then I generally eat dinner, because by that time of night, I am hungry.
And I've thought of trying to find other work- not in teaching. I know, I know. I'm 22, I have the rest of my life to teach... but I have no skills. I've never done admin or office work. I can pack groceries really well (seriously, I got compliments on it from customers). I can write (If I could get paid for writing fairly decent fan fiction, I'd be set). I'm a good teacher... well, I thought I was a good teacher, or at least becoming a good teacher.
It's so tempting to give up, but I don't want to give up. I don't want to be a quitter. I've never really quit anything (well, I quit Economics at school, but I hated that). I just... I don't know what to do any more.
