Growing pains

I am finally growing up, well and truly...

I have come to a point where I realise I should really start to make decisions which will need to last through for well... euhm... about the rest of my life.

I know I have talked about the matter that I did not know what I want to be when I grow up... well... I am getting there. Thing is that we have been looking for ways to make our life that tiny bit easier... We have been keeping options open, we have been thinking a lot of things through, like one of us looking for a job closer to home, without the shifts, because they are weighing through a lot now. Better hours, maybe one of us even parttime...

What's most important is that I want one of us to be here when the boys are older and are coming home from school with homework to do, that they can do it with one of us nearby to help them out, to watch them doing what needs to be done, as well as making sure we can eat at more regular times. Nowadays, we often prepare food with Soufyan and Yaesseen knock out on the sofa, then waking them up and sitting at the table with a whining four-year-old and a cranky and whining three-year-old. When they'll be a few years older, this won't be an option though... because it'll be too much for them to do their homework after they are knackered from school and pre- and afterschool care.

Add to that the fact that even though I still enjoy what I do and have the feeling I am good at what I am doing, I really don't see me doing this until my retirement... And the clock is ticking and I have a family depending on these decisions, I don't have a lot of time to mess around, trying to find a job I like better, with the risk of getting unemployed at a certain period and not earn enough to look after them (which is one of my biggest fears, therefore holding me back to take a risk and apply for another job). But with the government that is now coming up (they still haven't made a real new government after the elections yet, but they have an idea), we haven't heard a lot of positive things for our company in the news, which is a bit frightening. I know that I am in a safe spot where I am right now, because they will always need operators on the line to make sure that problems will be fixed, they are more important then sales operators, but still... I am afraid of losing the benefits that are keeping me there in the first place.

That's one of the reasons I called to one of our bosses today, well it's actually the man who organises our work force, asking for my options on working parttime, the shifts, the organisational options (five days a week, working four hours a day, or two days one week, three days the other, working eight hours a day, the weekends, the shifts... etc.). I also informed on the payment, the benefits the union will give me on top of that payment. And that is one of the reasons I have this site open.

Yes sirs, I am thinking about becoming a teacher, I would like to start my studies September 2008, so that I will finish by the time I'll turn 32 and then start a new carreer, by that time Soufyan will be 10, but it also means my parttime work will have started before he starts primary school, so it should work out the way I want. I am still unsure though. I have talked about it with Icky.

However, today I kind of dropped the matter to Soufyan and Yaesseen, who thought it was a joke! :D Soufyan thought I meant going to school with him, and he doesn't want me in his class, he says I am too big for his class, and if I want to do so, I should first be a baby again. I wish it was just as simple as that... I'd love to be a baby again, however today I'd rather not be our baby, since he is really ill, but still, I'd like to do that again, but skip puberty... :D

But in a way it's all exciting, me getting to the point to where I have an idea on what I want to be when I grow up, but it's scary as hell, because there is a lot more to it then just a lot of holidays :D And the fact that I cannot screw up this time is even more scarier. I will be a lot older then most other students, I will probably be the only one with three toddlers in the house, I will be the only one not drinking and not skipping classes, because I had my time doing so, and it didn't work out back then. And I will not allow myself making the same mistake.

I am already getting cold feet and I only started making real plans around all this yesterday, the thought of going back to school has been up for a while, but I am scared, which is good, because I remember me having cold feet when I left for Scotland and look how that turned out (however, I'd like to get out of this experience without turning pregnant ;))