It will be my one year anniversary for returning to Australia in just 19 days. And I’ve felt every one of those days pass. Slowly. Sometimes painfully. Other times with great happiness and gratitude.

This site, and my writing in general, simply stopped. It wasn’t a writing block. It was reverse culture shock and a lack of direction that prevented me from doing what I love. I learned that my two and half years of English teaching and teacher training experience was worthless here if I didn’t have a piece of paper from the government to say I’m accredited to be a trainer.

Being rejected by registered training organisations and ESL schools was like walking into a brick wall over and over again.

Faced with the financial inability to study, no where to live, no employment and the reality that I would have to take a considerable career step backwards in order to achieve some semblance of stability for my partner & my future together I realised that my passion had to be put on hold.

In the last year I’ve found a place to live (after having moved four times) and been in & out of work as an office administration assistant (acting as a temporary candidate for recruitment agencies). The idea was I would ‘temp’ while I found permanent work however I was never successful in the interviews. Not because I don’t interview well, rather, the feedback said it was clear my passion was elsewhere. I kept getting reminded that I wasn’t doing what I loved.

Sheer boredom on a Friday afternoon lead me to research the course I need to be a trainer in Australia and through pure chance I found a site that not only offered an online course at a discount rate but also offered a government grant that, if successful, would allow me to study for free. One phone call later and I was signed up to study the course for free!

Starting that course in September also started a new path for me. I made the decision that I would become a professional temp and market myself in such a way that I would be a highly sought after candidate for any temporary roles. In doing so, I acknowledged to my recruitment agents that I was no longer actively seeking full time permanent employment unless it would lead to being a trainer, and more specifically, a trainer/ teacher in ESL. The means to gain the qualification I need also gave me the confidence to own my passion and work towards it. And I haven’t been out of work since.

Within the course content I learned about the Adult Multicultural Education Services of Australia, which offers individuals the opportunity to become a volunteer tutor. AMES was exactly the type of government based non-profit organisation I was looking for to dust off my teaching cobwebs and get back in to the industry. After completing their training sessions earlier this week, I was matched with a student for one on one tutoring sessions.

Tonight I had my first session with Binh, an elderly Vietnamese woman who can only say hello, and thank you.

I kept waiting to be nervous and the nerves never came. I felt confident, and as I taught Binh the pronunciation of numbers 0-9 and the alphabet I felt that remarkable spark that teaching always lights in me. It is when I see the recognition of pride in the student’s eyes, having learned a new concept or successfully able to produce a new sound that I am filled with gratitude for the gift of learning that I can impart.

While on my way to see Binh I read a recent, and might I add well worth a read, post from one of my favourite bloggers, Glen Allsopp. He writes:

Author Daniel Coyle introduces something called Myelin, which I found really interesting.

Myelin, neurologists have recently discovered, is basically the key to all human talking, reading and learning skills. If you view every human movement or thought as an electrical impulse travelling through a circuit of neurons, then think of myelin like the insulation which wraps around these fibres and increases their signal strength. “The more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes that circuit, and the stronger, faster, and more fluent our moments and thoughts become” recaps Coyle.

Coyle comes to the conclusion that passion and persistence are the key ingredients of talent and success. Why? “Because wrapping myelin around a big circuit requires immense energy and time. If you don’t love it, you’ll never work hard enough to be great.”

Glen’s post was about productivity but I think it’s also key in understanding that no matter what we want we have to be prepared to be passionate, to love it, to squash other’s pessimism and to keep going, even if it means putting your passion on hold to get back on your feet. This last year has been … well, honestly, fricken hard work, but, and a big but …

I’m now teaching again and I’m well on my way to being the qualified trainer I already know I am!