The Adventures of Bear and Butterfly

So it’s been almost 2 and half months, but I have finally landed a job. A big thanks has to go to Tony and Liz for giving us a place to stay. This has enabled me to take some time finding the right job.

It’s funny how things play out sometimes. I went for about 2 months getting almost zero interest in the job market. And then with a tiny change of focus, everything changed. I got offered the chance to apply for a role at Symantec, in a field that I hadn’t been pursuing at all. They really liked my CV and so I got to do a technical interview over the phone. I wasn’t sure how well I did but they obvioulsy thought it was good enough to get me in for a face to face. I travelled out to Reading for the second interview, and got grilled with some HR questions. I felt rather dubious about it all after the second interview and was told I would have to wait until Friday (It was Monday) to hear the result.

With all of this in mind I started to have a look for similair roles. I found one, applied for it, and found myself going back out to Reading on the Friday (same day I was expecting to hear from Symantec) for an interview at BlackSpider Technologies. That interview went super well. I left feeling 99.99% sure I was going to get an offer. Unfortunately they said they would get back to me on Monday. It turns out however that I didn’t hear from Symantec either, which left me feeling even more dubious about that role. In my mind I was going to be working for BlackSpider. The money was a bit less but still good.

Monday rolled round, and Jasmin and took a trip out to Reading to look for properties (we were pretty confident). I was just about to hop on the train when I got a call regarding the BlackSpider position. The news was they were very happy with me and I was their number 1 choice, but they had a second person who was willing to work for 10K less than me, so they wanted to know if I would take less money. This didn’t sit well with me at all. I told them I would be willing to negotiate but they were well off the mark at this stage. I then got settled on the train and immediately called up the recruiter handling the Symantec job. I explained the situation and spurred him into action. After some back and forth phone calls between myself and the recruiters, my Symantec guy got back to me just after we arrived in Reading. He said I was one of 2 prospects Symantec were interested in and that he had got an offer that was only 2K below what I had indicated I would expect. I was over the moon and immediately accepted. I then got a call back a bit later saying that Symantec were over the moon and had infact bumped the offer up 2K to my original expectation.

Needless to say I am fully stoked now. I got the company I wanted and the package I wanted. It means Jasmin and I will be moving to Reading. We have a bit of time to sort it out as I don’t start until July 17. Things are looking up …

I had a spot of teaching last week, I did four days & it was pretty easy because I was only with each class for a little over an hour.  Not too many dramas can happen in that time.  Everyday I got lost trying to find the classrooms.  The school is this maybe 5 storey buildin with stairs all over the place leading to I don’t know where.  You think they would give me a map, but instead I just asked the kiddies,  they would take me by the hand & lead me.
The classrooms are all over the place, they have a nursery for little kiddies which I had to spend my last few hours in.  Pretty scary things little four years olds!  I think the oldest kids are 12 years, so it is a really big school.  There are so many kids there that they have to take their break times separately.  They don’t have a field to play in & only really old bars to climb on.  The nursery had more play equipment than the whole school.  No grass.  A few trees.  Their play yard is a fenced off concreted area by the road, & the kids mostly just stand around talking.  No sports.  But the kids seemed pretty happy, I guess they don’t know any different.  I know Kiwi kids would be pretty distraught at the lack of space.  There is no room to run around because there are so many kids.
But then British schools have pluses, like some of the kids I taught were in this ‘Hear Our Voices’ choir & were going to Germany to sing.  Oh, & they don’t have to worry about mum or dad having to pack a lunch or having their lunch taken out of their school bag, because they have a big lunch room & get warm meals from the school kitchen.  It didn’t look very appetising though, sort of like school camp meals, baked beans, eggs… cold burnt toast… there weren’t too many fat kids at the school!
I can’t imagine what the kids would do when it is a wet lunchtime.  I don’t know where they would go.  I’m glad my nephews go to a good kiwi school!
I went to an Ayurvedic Dr on Saturday to get some insight into my hand.  It is still pretty bad, real itchy.  They say I have too much air in me (which accounts for all my farting!) & I need to put more heat & moisture into my body.  They told me something interesting, as adults we shouldn’t drink a cold drink with our meals, because it puts out our digestive fire.  So instead we could have a glass of warm water or milk.  Kids are ok because they have a stronger metabolic action in their bellies, but eventually as I am learning now, our digestive systems can’t handle everything as well as it used to when we were little…
So they gave me these pills which look like Rabbit or Goat poo to eat.  Yummy!  I don’t know how well it will work.