First off, I've been working on getting a new job. I've gotten some offers and am currently looking at getting a new job with more of an international school than just a straight English academy. Unfortunately, this has been complicated by the fact that there seems to be an internal struggle for power going on in their company over who is able to hire and fire people. So I seem to have come in right in the middle of that and really would rather lay low until it burns itself out. Other specifics I would rather not mention as this is a public blog and they may go so far as to google me seeing as I am a potential new hire. Nobody likes seeing their dirty laundry on the web, but I'll be happy to tell you in private as there are some funny stories that have come out of this.
The "new job" thing has also been complicated by the fact that my current boss is acting like a 5 year old regarding my leaving his company. He has fallen just short of stamping his feet in meeting where he has yelled at me to stay threatening me with insults and empty legal action. He demanded I give him 3 months notice, I said that three weeks was more than adequate and now I'm leaving in the middle of October and he still thinks it's outrageous.
Honestly, after all this i'd almost rather just come home so i could get away from people hanging visa problems over my head to act as false leverage in business encounters. I think i've handle myself well though - so we'll see if this all winds up to a favorable conclusion. If it doesn't, I can always move.
So, aside from that, i've taken up scuba lessons and am going for my PADI Open Water certification. I, just yesterday, finished the confined water dives which were done in a pool in Suwan. I had a lot of initial problems breathing underwater without my mask on (one of the requirements) but I finally got it after about 10 tries and lots and lots of coughing. Next week I'm heading to the ocean in a wetsuit that will hopefully fit in order to finish up the certification by proving that i can do everything i just did in the pool in the ocean. I'm worried though, mainly because it's SO cold right now. the temperature last week went from about 28 degrees C to about 15 degrees C overnight! Fortunately the instructors have noticed my aversion to cold and are pretty keen on taking precautions to prevent my premature demise.
so, that's it! I tried to make it pretty short so I left at lot of little details out - but now at least you know what i've been up to!
I'll post about the job stuff later. until then, i'm going to go mentally prepare for a very cold ocean!
