The Adventures of an International School Librarian

Its fascinating living in a country so removed from where you originally grew up. Having moved to Vientiane, Laos at the end of July 2016 I found myself in a city of temples and monks. And it is just glorious. I travel to work every day with a big smile on my face because I love the lifestyle here. Its so slow paced, no one rushes to do anything and it just happens I have the best job in the world too. Unlike my last school and awful experience in China, this school in Vientiane is just wonderful. The teachers I work with are awesome, the students are amazing and the school properly looks after its teachers. They care about you. I arrive in work most days at 7.30am and I am happy to stay in school till close to 5pm. I am frantically busy. I love my job and I don't think I have dreaded going into work once. How many people honestly get to say that? Over a 5 week period I conducted 5 workshops for parents which ranged from what the VIS library does, to searching and evaluatin...

So I entirely forgot about this blog. Whoops! These things do happen. Life tends to get in the way. To catch up over the past two years from where I last left off, I continued to work part time in the library for 2 and half years in total. Then 6 months ago I picked up some more hours and was almost working a full time job. Yet in the back of my mind I was worried about my contracts knowing that they weren't permanent, that job security still lacked. That I was constantly broke. That I had to move home because I couldn't afford to pay rent. So sometime in July I started randomly applying for jobs. I'm not sure I was actually serious about moving away. I think I just really fancied the idea. I'd toyed around for years with the idea. It really was just working up the courage to do so. Then finally in August I was offered a job - in China. My wonderful and amazing boyfriend persuaded me that this was the best decision that I was likely to make. In his words "Stop ...