Ch-ch-ch-changes

Feel like I am living in a David Bowie song. Yesterday we were staying put, last night we were moving to France and this morning we are going to Asia. Right now though we don't know again. HR is talking to HR, meetings are being arranged and we are once again speculating on stuff that we don't have answers to.

My son has given up asking me where he will be going to school, the grandparents just sigh and I have chewed my cheeks to pieces.

ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Boarding Schools revisited

Stuck in boarding school hell right now. I can't decide what to do with my son. If we stay here, it will have to be boarding school so I am now researching boarding schools - everywhere. France? The UK? Switzerland? Amsterdam? Australia? Thailand?

What I don't know about boarding schools frankly isn't worth knowing.

And then today I meet someone who does one of those know-it-all things.

"Yes, well actually, the school that you have thought about is such an inferior school! One should really look elsewhere is one cares about one's son."

Really? It has a 98% admittance to first preference university places? And acres of grounds, fabulous facilities, lovely nice well spoken boys.

"Yes, but seeing as it isn't a guaranteed 100% university entrance, it really is rather shabby."

Give me a break. Where do these people get off. My old school had about a 20% university entrance and that was a private school - a fee paying selective school.

Does my head in.

The thing is though that I don't really want my son to be hobnobbing with fabulously rich people. I don't want him hanging out with insanely competitive children. I don't want him to feel inadequate or lack confidence. I want him to go somewhere that he will be happy. Somewhere that he will grow and mature in and that is accessible to us so we can see as much of him as possible.

A 100% toffy nosed, dysfunctional, academic, rich, nerd is not my idea of future happiness for him.

But what do I know? I'm Australian!

Meetings

Endless meetings seem to be happening right now. Every time I try to call my husband, he is in a meeting.

Online meetings, video meetings or virtual meetings.

Cyber conferences.

Meetings with HR people here, meetings with HR people over there.
He is even flying out of the country to go and see some people.

They want to have a meeting.

What a surprise!

Another month bites the dust.....

Still no further on from the last time I posted and everything is still in utter limbo. The only thing that does seem to be a fact is that my son and my husband probably won't be living in the same house anymore. The reality that appears to be looming is that either my son goes to boarding school or I live separately from my husband and the children go to day school in another country with me whilst my husband does the commute on weekends.

What sort of a mess have we got ourselves into? There are no schooling vacancies here and the waiting lists are beyond feasible and yet we have children who have to go to school.

So its one or the other and I am feeling totally torn by this situation. I don't want a fractured family. I don't want to live apart from my husband. I don't want my son to go to boarding school.

But the reality is - it's one or the other.

Sigh.

Moving?

My husband came home last night talking about a possibility which has us staying over this side of the world for a few years longer and, whilst I can see the logic of this, when he was talking about it, one part of me wanted to jump up and say "NO!!!"

Staying here feels a bit like I am missing out on some fundamental enjoyment of life. Things are just different and often , I don't know if it is a difference that I like.

Positives?

1. Safe environment to raise a family
2. Health environment - no birds flu or SARs to worry about. When we left Asia we had gone throuh SARs and two of the chidlren had also been hospitalised with Beijing Flu.
   
3. Easy life. I can be wherever I need to be in about ten minutes. No traffic worries, parking issues or late night transport problems.
4. Continuity for the children with friends and a stable environment.
   
5. Fabulous education system. They will be set up for life - this is a huge plus.
   
6. We have friends here - although as many of my friends are expats - that is a worry as in a few years they will have all moved on.
7. The possible job will be more lucrative.
8. We know our way around here - we ahve done the hard legwork finding doctors, dentists etc.
9. We will probably buy a property over this side of the world - perhaps France so we have a base of our own.
   

Negatives?

1. The weather. Grim, grim and grim.
2. The cold and wet - 6 months of the year this place is crap.
3. Living in this current house. I like the convenience - hate the carpeting, lighting, space issues.
4. I miss swimming and the sun.
   
5. Small island life - boring.
6. I hate the way people socialise here- always girls night out. Never couples doing things together. Such a weird way to have a social life when it is only single sex entertainment.
7. It is hard for me to work here - and I want a fulltime job - maybe this can be negotiated though.
   

Time will reveal all.

Boarding School?

So now we are caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, my son is about to graduate. On the other hand, there are no school places available for him where we live. So what to do? I lie in bed thinking through various scenarios till my head spins or I chew the side of my mouth to pieces.

The thing is, for us, boarding school has never been an option. My head is full of Dickensian images. Children begging for more gruel. Caning. Iron beds. Fagging. Prefects. Strange boys who grow up to become seriously strange men with a penchant for wearing suspenders and ladies silk stockings under their three pieces suits.

And now I find myself in the same situation.

I have imagined relocating. Moving back to Asia. Moving close to a UK based school. Returning to Australia. Boarding next to grandparents. Day boarding. Home schooling. Even setting up my own school - if I am having these thought surely other parents must be having similar thoughts?

So last week I headed off on the Great UK Boarding School Expedition.

And I am impressed. Seriously impressed.

But I didn't want to be. I really didn't want boarding school to be an option for us. I wanted to shake my head smugly and say "boarding school may be ok for some... but not for us!"

Instead I can home in a lather of excitement. The facilities are superb. Teachers? Kind. Food? Delicious. Academic achievements? Brilliant. There was simply nothing to fault the school on. The best thing though were the boys. Scruffy, long haired, smiling, happy, well spoken, calm, friendly boys. The kind of boys that you would want your son to grow up to become. They spoke confidently about their work. They made eye contact and they smiled. They laughed a lot. They were motivated to read and study for the sheer enjoyment of learning something. They were creative - the school has a strong design bent - and they all knew two languages. Their bedrooms were clean but a bit messy. No anally retentive housemasters ordering them to make hospital corners on their beds - most of them had duvets on them.

I want to go!

What happens if we stay?

The banker came home the other day and raised the possibility of us staying here for a longer period of time - and I have no idea what I think about that. On the one hand, the schooling here is superb and I can see a huge benefit for the children in staying here for a longer period of time. The classes are very small, they get individual attention, the school is very close to our house, the curriculum is very wide and they get a lot of exposure to different subjects, teachers and classes... far better than we experienced in Asia.

On the other hand, I hate the weather here. The word that most springs to mind is grim. Living in a small place limits opportunities. I can't always do the things that I would like to do. Getting off the island is expensive and difficult to manage both in terms of the weather, the cost and the sheer logistics.

But really none of these things will have any impact at all. It will come down to the job and whether the job is the right one for him at the time. This is not a matter of him being selfish - it is a matter of us recognising the best possible outcome for the family as a whole.

My job is to make sure that everyone is happy and manages regardless of where we are. If we stay here I would like to buy a property rather than living in the accommodation that the bank provides. Somewhere in Europe is an attractive option as it would give us a base that is not so far away. This would also provide some continuity for the children rather than living in provided accommodation. Also, if we have a base then we can stop this endless culling of possessions. Each time we move we are limited as to how much we can ship and with a house full of kids we seem to be endlessly accumulating whether it is the collection of shells, stickers or rocks or simply books and novels. By having a base we can retain some of this stuff and keep it in one location.

So right now I have two things in my head. Moving back to somewhere in Asia. Or staying put.

And things will start happening and decisions will be made over the next four months....