UGH. Too many choices.

Everyone fights to have the ability to choose. People spend time and money to have the right to choose... and then when we're faced with too many choices we naturally want to throw our hands up and say, "Ya Allah give me whatever is best for me!" Which is by no means a bad thing to do, but it all becomes so overwhelming that we sit back and make excuses for not making up our minds.

This week I've been so frazzled. We moved to our apartment in Makkah to stay for good while we worked out my working situation. I had an offer from one school, then two, then three. All had amazing perks, and really, really bad things which made it seriouly hard not to just give up and stay at home with my baby. 3 callbacks... that's more than what I expected and it's great. I'm not complaining. Oh wait... I am. It was TERRIBLE.

I mean, even getting to the first interview was this emotional explosion. I didn't expect it, but the idea of leaving my baby for the first time really hurt me and I spent a week procrastinating because I didn't know if I was ready to leave her.  I got over it, I motored on.

With school A, I saw them first and I loved the manager who interviewed me and I adored the location and the building. I was incredibly happy to land that job, that is, until my brother in law told my husband that the pay was extremely low. For 4 hours a day, 4 days a week I thought it was amazing. It was the hours that won me, just enough that I could get out of the house without feeling like I was going to die if I didn't go home. I liked the method of teaching, I completed the online course, I was ready.

Then I got callbacks from two other schools...

I thought, because of the pay issue, I might as well see what I can get! I rushed to school B. School B was very prompt in replying. They told me to prepare 2 mock lessons, 5 minutes long. The language barrier between the woman on the phone and I had me completely confused and I was really nervous that I would get there and make a fool out of myself during my mock lesson.

I got to school B and I told the front desk I wanted to see Mrs. so and so and she waved me up the stairs. Ok, hella rude, but I ignored it. I walked upstairs and poked my head into 3 offices before finding Mrs. so and so. I got there and she was nice enough, that is, until she made a comment about me being big and tall and that I didn't look like a good candidate for teaching kids because I might scare them! I sucked in a breath and didn't respond. She then got the demo ready, and my mock student ended up being students. They liked my kids demo and then I went into the subject matter that Mrs. so and so had me prepare- grammar in 5 minutes. I turned to the white board and they started whispering in arabic behind me, giggles, and I remembered Mrs.so and so's comment and tried not to think about it but I could feel the sting in my eyes. I wanted to cry, since getting there it DID NOT go well. Mrs. so and so was rude, these mock students who would be teachers I work with could see I was not in my game, I felt like a major idiot. I bombed my grammar lesson.

Before meeting with Mrs. so and so they pulled her aside, probably to tell her I was incompetent. She walked into her office, looked me up and down, and told me that I was hired and she wanted me to work Sunday. She also told me that the demo bombed and she didn't care because it was a stressful situation to be put in... I didn't want to like her. I already saw how they worked there. I didn't feel good at all. The pay, however, was excellent. Beyond excellent. As soon as I left I felt sick... would I really sacrifice happiness for money? Maybe. If I could suck up my pride and walk in there again. It was unlikely.

Then I headed to my next interview, a bit shaken, emotional. It was a really well funded facility, clean, lots of young teachers. I met the manager and we started talking. She was friendly and sociable, she told me she liked me right away and it boosted my confidence enough that I forgot about school B. She told me school C was the largest in the world, and it looked like it. She couldn't give me an accurate idea of what my salary would be, somewhere between 6 and 7 thousand. Later into the interview things got unprofessional. She told me she fired someone because they didn't say Hi, she told me I was taking the spot of someone who she was going to fire for gossip. She offered to hang out and smoke shisha (not something I do...). I was getting a weird vibe, they all seemed very... close. She was the 'popular' girl at work, the boss, and that scared me. A lot. I still don't know what to make of them. They have a driver, the funding, great vacation pay, all the good stuff. But they scared me a bit, and not knowing my salary does NOT help me make a decision.

So now, after tons of STRESS I decided to follow my heart and stick with school A, the pay isn't great but the hours are. The environment looked healthy. They were very professional. Sometimes making choices is overwhelming, hard, and now not something I want to do for a very long time...