It's happened! (Actually, it happened a couple of weeks ago, but I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to blog it, so let me try and drum up an air of spontaneity anyway, ok?)

It's happened – wheeeeeeeeeee! I have a new job! (It's not strictly a new job, coz it's where I worked for 8 years before I took a break from teaching – but it's sort of new, so let me pretend, ok?)

My return to teaching has been a bit of a mixed bag. The biggest change has been trying to get used to the ACT college system, and while it certainly has its good points, things like the BSSS website have done my head in.

Canberra is a Public Service city, and the BSSS is a kick-in-the-guts reminder of that. The bureaucracy that underpins the college system, and the website that is its government-to-teacher interface, is the most user-unfriendly, totally unintuitive, faceless, soulless juggernaut in the whole of the National Capital.

The school where I currently teach began as a small community school. It's now a lot bigger than that, but it still has a warm fuzzy small-community-school feel that is at odds with the hard-edged bureaucratic bullshit that it has to work within. (sorry – “within which it has to work”.) Its clientele isn't sure whether it wants to be 'small-town' or 'big city' – but, trust me, the two make uncomfortable bedfellows.

So I'm moving on. Or rather, moving back. Going back to the place where I taught for eight years. Back to a system I know and feel comfortable with (with which I feel comfortable. I know proper grammar lol).

Am I going round in circles? Is it ever really possible to 'go back'? Well - I'm about to find out, and I'm quite excited in a sort of bittersweet way. One of my lovely students gave me choccies and a card yesterday. It read "Thank you for being such an awesome, down to earth, friendly teacher. I will miss you heaps but I wish you the very best in your new school."

Watch this space.