Revving the engine back up

Let's start with the title, shall we? 'Mastering the Vice'. This being my first foray back into Blogdom since it was no longer safe to be back in the water, I'm looking for something that captures this new chapter. I considered 'Adventures in Vice Principalling', but think that 'adventure' has been overdone. 'Vice's Virture' was on the brainstorm list, but seemed pretentious and a little too Milton-esque for my tastes. Churchill's "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire' was perfect, apart from its length. I've settled on the title, having read the following:

You must master the vices. You know that if a thing is worth doing it's worth doing well. If, however, a thing is not worth doing then it's worth doing fabulously, amazingly, with grace, style and panache.

I'd argue that none of my vices are especially graceful or stylish, but one should strive, yes? 

I've returned to familiar territory in a very new place. I am seeing things that render me speechless, so I must therefore write. The gain from the last blog was huge- I still read through it occasionally, and marvel. Not at anything silly like surviving- perish the thought- but at just how bizarre and powerful the experience was. And, truth be told, at the story. Pretty well written, if I do say so myself. No Pulitzer or anything, but I must admit that I have found myself nodding appreciatively at the occasional turn of my own phrase.

Never accused of false modesty, me. Or any other kind of modesty.

The rules from the last blog still apply: the only skeletons that will be rattled here are my own. I will be dignified, even in the deepest outrage, and endeavor not to reveal names or events that will embarrass or hurt anyone. Sometimes I don't know why I bother, as some of the people in the last one seemed so determined to embarrass themselves that it was almost rude not to identify them. I am likely to be less kind to some of those people now, however, as distance and time have removed my need to feign politeness. And honestly, some of them no longer matter enough for me to protect them from exposure. That feels like a healthy place to be. 

So to sum up the last two years and get on with the new stories, let me be brief.

I lived.
So far.

I finished five years in Korea (and will touch on parts of that in future posts, so there's no fear of missing anything interesting) and FINALLY - 49 or 50 applications later, in total- got a Vice Principal position. Note that the plethora of applications was over the course of a couple of years. Having said that, I was actually approaching despair; the kind of despair that made me think about going back to teaching English. Shudder. 

Don't get me wrong- I LOVE teaching English. LOOOOOOVE it. Like I love pork chops and hot stone bowl bibimbap and whiskey sours. But I am so far past all the marking of assignments that to consider a return to it would be like putting the stilletos back on the morning after the senior prom and wearing them to work. It wasn't the reason why I got into admin in the first place, but it was a great, hulking, seething incentive. 

So the week of interviews with the school in China, and the overwhelming sense of positivity and good humour that accompanied them, and then the RELIEF- the oxygen-coming-back-into-the-room relief at being offered the contract: that was pretty good. Yes, indeed.

I won't bore you with all the details of the months that followed. I shall bore you with SOME of the details, eventually, of course. Suffice to say that one calendar month ago, four enormous suitcases and I joined the fifteen boxes already waiting for me and containing all my wordly goods in Hangzhou. (It turns out that all my worldy goods were rather a LOT of goods. I haven't reached hoarder status yet, but I fear that may only be because I have to pack the ruddy stuff up so often)
There followed a full four weeks and odd days of jet lag, unpacking, cleaning, bemoaning the state of my wardrobe, WILTING in the heat, buying a bike, meeting new colleagues, buying an ebike, more unpacking, shopping, joining a gym, grinning at the neighbours, eliciting sighs of frustration from shop keepers, eating dicey-looking street food, having my bag inspected at subway stations, hair-raising rides through packed streets, starting school, learning curriculum, wrangling with washing machines, debating with parents, playing Good Samaritan, meeting students, WILTING some more... Lord, so much. There are stories hidden there in the list, of course, and I'll come back to them. For now, I'm committing to keeping a record of it. Feel free to plug in the turntable and listen along.