Sunday 31 August 2014

Back to work?

Back to work! Today is the last day of a one year sabbatical away from my job at Mount Royal University. It's been a good year and a strange one. The program I have been a part of for the last 10 years was suspended by the University after a budget cut (more on that in the future). Prior to that I was granted a sabbatical, and when the cuts came I was given the option to stay and teach (while receiving funds for the leave) or take the sabbatical. I took the sabbatical and left the teaching for fellow faculty. My departure left quite a few classes available and more work for everyone else.....not as selfless as it sounds, as I needed the break and did not want to be around for the dismantling of the program I helped build (more on that too).

During the past year I spent a lot of time pondering my next move, I sure had a lot of questions....

Did I want to teach another 20 years?
Did I want to stay at Mount Royal?
How long could I live in Calgary without a job?
Is Calgary an arts friendly environment?
As an Educator that supplements my income as a musician could I make enough just as a performer?
What do I need?

I spent the entire year focused on my pursuits with a lot of time dedicated to planing my next move, but little did I know there were some extremely helpful people working behind the scenes to have me re-deployed to a new department, and on St. Patrick's day while in Dublin Ireland I received an email:

CONGRATULATIONS  You have been redeployed to the faculty of Teaching and Learning!

It felt good! but after the initial happiness, I was struck with the idea that all of my stress, concern and planing about the future was a waste.....but then again, was it?

I learned a lot about myself this past year, things I might not have ever realized.

Now I need to learn a lot about the new topics I am going to be teaching in a few days!