Moving...yet again.

I'm getting pretty sick of it too. The reason we're moving is pretty stupid to be honest. Because we said that we were interested in getting a bigger place, the director immediately put the apartment we're in now up for sale. Well, we had found something we wanted but did not want to put almost $4000 down for it, even if we did get it back, things were kind of dicey with the director anyway as far as being paid on time. SO... this place got sold and the director had to get another place so now we're moving tomorrow. We were told Monday. We're moving just across the street and down the block a little so a little farther from some things but closer to others, we'll have to see how that all works. One of the frustrating things is to get to the area I enjoy going to most of the time, I'll now have to cross the really busy street which I didn't have to before. We only had to cross it to go to the store. Now, we won't have to cross it for that but we will to get everywhere else I enjoyed going to before. *sigh*

If only this were to be the last move, it wouldn't be so frustrating but ultimately, we are going to have to move again and it may even end up being in another city altogether. The director has more or less told John that he plans to replace him and from what John has understood it will be with a female teacher. He would have to find the teacher first but I guess, when the school is as iffy as this one, what parents say go and most parents just are not into a male kindergarten teacher. And that was all that was said, the director does recognize that John does want to teach, actually teach, not babysit though which unfortunately is a lot of what kindergarten here is at least in the ESL schools, especially the private ones. I am very quickly becoming frustrated and tired of the whole deal. It seems the situation is worse here than it was at home but John doesn't seem to think so and is bound and determined to see this through for one reason or another even though I'm not entirely happy with the situation (and at times downright ANGRY with him about it) and Natalie is, in her own way, reacting negatively as well. He's bound and determine to make money and save it but I'm the one who has to be on top of it to make sure he doesn't spend it all! Otherwise, it would all be gone. He has NO concept of a budget whatsoever and that's really frustrating too.

So, I really don't know what is going to happen in the next few months much less two years. I keep hearing that once he finds a good job then things will be much better but a lot of directors, especially those of hagwons (the private schools here) for whatever reason seem to think that foreign teachers are a dime a dozen. They're not though, they cost a considerable amount of money to get and to keep (since things like paying on time is a concept lost on many people here).

So, that's been my world of late. I just hope that when all of this is done and over with (and it will be at some point because there is just NO way for John to make a career out of this whatsoever), he'll be ready to go home and SETTLE DOWN for awhile! Sometimes I think he should have stayed in the army when he was in there because that would have totally met his need to roam, I'm sure they would have been VERY happy to send him all over the place and at least with the military, you can get stuff shipped to you pretty much like normal. But maybe he just needs a couple of years to get this out of his system and after that, he'll be done with it. At the very least, I have decided that when we go back, I will be going back to work. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy staying at home with Natalie and I enjoy spending time with her and all of that but I'm tired of depending on other people for survival. I hate that here, John is the only one who can work. I can't. I don't have my four year degree. That is required to teach ESL. And I hate that there really isn't much I can do here. I can't bake, I can't do the usual jewelry stuff, or my scrapbook, or really anything more than the laundry, keep the apartment clean which doesn't take very much as small as it is (I mean, it's only one room), and cook which is also very limited because we really only have the stove to do that. I can grocery shop and go window shopping and sometimes do some actual shopping when I have some money but nothing REALLY challenging these days.

I would love to learn to sew, learn to do some gardening, things like that but I've just finally come to the conclusion that I'm really getting to be too old to be depending on someone who, job-wise, just isn't all that dependable, no matter where we are at. He's just not. I want to go back to work and learn to drive and actually be able to be a little more independent so that maybe I won't feel so much frustration in my life, at the very least, frustration towards John. He's always been better with the domestic stuff anyway and his standard of clean has always been higher than mine (product of living with a mother who really didn't care to clean and has has kept houses so filthy, they've become mouse-infested, one house was even condemned and torn down after we lived in it) not that mine is THAT bad but it's not as high as his, I can tolerate some mess, he can't tolerate much at all though ironically enough, he has no problem with his clothes being all over the place.

But really, there are times I wonder if I'll ever be able to make a home for us all. Since we moved out of our house on West Avenue when I was 17 (that was the one that was torn down), I have not lived in anyplace for more than two years. Not one place. We moved out of there spring of 1998 so it's been 11 years now. And the longest I've lived in a place has been seven and a half years and that was the first place I lived from birth until the house burned down May of 1988. That year wasn't fun either, we spent most of that summer in a 10 foot pop-up camper so I suppose things could be worse but still, not having a permanent home isn't fun either. There's no stability for Natalie, no place she can really call home, things change frequently for her and it's no wonder that she struggles at times, she really has no idea what is going to happen next. Tomorrow, we're going to be in a new apartment which means getting everything settled in again for her and getting her adjusted and eventually, we probably will end up moving again, maybe even to another city and she's at an age where she just doesn't really understand why and I start to wonder how that's fair for her because really, it isn't.

When I originally decided to let John have his way about the whole thing, my idea was that we would go from the apartment in Beaver Dam to the apartment provided by the school and stay there for two years, then come home. It NEVER crossed my mind that we would end up going from the apartment to one sister's house, from there to the other sister's apartment, from there to here, from here to another apartment and another. It just never crossed my mind at all that we would end up moving four times in just over six months and really, if I had known that, I never would have agreed to this because this is the kind of thing that messes kids up. When we finally do go back home, it will be with the intention of staying in ONE place for not just two years but AT LEAST 4-5 years. Much of that though, will be determined by how long we stay here which is partly determined by whether or not John can behave himself and not get me pregnant. We had a VERY VERY close call this month and I have decided that if I become pregnant, we do not stay here. I will not have a baby here. I have decided that for sure. I have no desire at this point to have another child so there's no plan to get pregnant to make us go home. I'm not stupid, I know things up very up in the air there and that we really are not in any shape to go home yet. We could be though, if we really got things together and John found a job he can actually keep for more than three or four months, we could send a decent amount home and save up what we need in a year or two. That is not impossible at all. But right now, there is just a lot that's up in the air and to be honest, I really cannot do this moving thing too many more times. At some point, I will expect him to face reality. Living out of suitcases is not my idea of fun and there's only so much time I'm going to put up with that.

But at the moment, he hasn't even gotten any written notice or anything like that and legally, the director HAS to give him a WRITTEN 30 day notice. So that gives us a little time anyway.