A cunning plan is hatched.
And the first part gets put into action...
INSIDE: I’ve finally realized teaching isn’t for me, but I don’t know what to do next, my husband has a secret plan, and he makes his first move.
Last week in Part Two (and in case you missed it, here’s Part One)…
I talked about how I thought I could solve the difficulties I was having with teaching with... you guessed it, another teaching job!
While it was indeed a better situation, and I have such fond memories of my primary school Kitchen Specialist job, I realized I had to try something new.
The only question was... what?
Frustrated Teacher Quits In Disgust, Sells The Farm, Moves The Family Halfway Across The World And… Starts Knitting
Part Three
While I was trying to decide what I’d do next... little did I know...
My husband had prepared a cunning plan, and he saw me needing a career change as the perfect opportunity to put his plans into motion.
But he knew he had to start with something simple.
My kids went to a different primary school to the one I worked at. They had learned Indonesian for many years, but their language teacher retired, and the school didn’t replace her.
My kids had been almost fluent, but today? They don’t remember a word.
So… he thought we could get the kids to learn Spanish, as it was important to us they had a second language. Given it’s the fourth-most-spoken language in the world, I agreed!
Every day after they came home from school, they began practicing Spanish on Duolingo on our old tablet. They sat at the wooden River Red Gum island bench my father made, faces scrunched in concentration.
And then my husband ever so casually brought up the idea of me learning Spanish too. Something in common to have with your kids, he said. You might enjoy it, and it’s important to keep learning. Again, I agreed.
Sounds fair enough, right?
But I had a sneaking suspicion there was something more on his mind.
And my goodness, was there ever!
It was 2015, and my husband had had enough.
The farm was struggling. Though we’d had some success, the Global Financial Crisis was just the first of many problems we faced.
Then came year after year of severe droughts and water restrictions all across regional Australia. We had to make the difficult decision to let over half of the vines we’d planted die off.
It was devastating seeing all that vibrant green become a dead brown.
It got even harder when a local winery (who’d always been our biggest buyer) stopped taking our grapes because they couldn’t justify supporting the smaller growers. Bigger corporate-run grape farms got their business instead!
My kids, particularly my eldest, struggled at school, where he’d beg us to let him stay home some days instead of having to face another day there.
I continued working at the Primary School, but it was difficult to get up and go every day, knowing I couldn’t do that job for much longer.
My husband was working multiple jobs while managing the farm. Not to mention helping his parents, and looking after the kids while I was at work!
He didn’t like seeing the kids and I struggle every single day. He found it difficult to see us upset.
Things were only going to get worse if we didn’t do something about it.
Something had to change.
So he sat me down one night and explained his grand plan.
What do you mean, I asked him? Quit my job? Pull the kids out of school? Sell the farm? Move halfway across the world to Spain? He nodded.
I was aghast. I had a thousand excuses why it couldn’t possibly work.
All his suggestions seemed ludicrous!
I knew nothing about homeschooling, traveling with a young family, how I’d manage being self-employed, let alone not being able to speak the language!
Nor could I imagine having to build our online business, working for ourselves, or a life outside Australia without a steady, paying job.
And how could we possibly sell everything? My head spun thinking of all the work it’d take.
But as we discussed it... I realized something.
We’d dreamed of traveling with our kids for years, sparked by our experience in our late twenties teaching English in Japan.
We wanted to experience the world as a family and learn about other cultures.
Why was I so reluctant? It’d be hard... but I could do it. I’d made big changes before. The only thing holding me back was fear of the unknown.
So... would I pull it off?
And another question for you: if there’s a language you’d like to learn, what is it?
Press reply or leave a comment!
Before you go…
Japan?! oh this story just keeps getting better!
Thank you again truly for sharing this with us Jodie! So inspiring. I love that language learning has been a big part of your life and planning. ♥️ Among other things, I had learned some basic Japanese, eons ago. I had taken JLPT, that was what the course was called. I didn’t retain much of it but just some basics. 😄 I find that when it comes to languages “use it or lose it” is very true!