Friday 18th November

It has been a really stressful week this week and with it has brought a change that I wasn’t expecting. I received an email from Derby University offering me an interview for the PGCE, which this is the third attempt I have made on getting onto the course so of course I was thrilled to get to this stage again. Unfortunately the date I was offered was the 15^th December, which there is no way I am going to be able to make! I knew that the University had interviews at the end of January as well so I emailed them asking if I could have that date instead. It turns out that the interviews this year have been brought forward by 3 weeks and are on the 4^th January instead, when I will still be in China.

The first thing that I had to do was to find out off TTC if I could end my contract early, meaning that I would miss the last 10 school days. My option was either hand in my notice, which would mean that I wouldn’t get my completion bonus, that I wouldn’t get paid for the last month and that I wouldn’t be able to use TTC as a reference or receive my certificate for the TEFL weekend course that I did during those first two weeks in Beijing. My second option was to get the school to sign an early release from contract form, which would mean that I would still get my bonus, reference, certificate and pay. The latter seemed a much better option so I approached the vice principal, explained my circumstances and then had to make an appointment to see the principal to get her to sign the form the next morning. Thursday morning I went to see the principal and explained my situation and luckily the principal signed the form there and then! I was so relieved as I had been so worried since I got the interview offer on Tuesday and barely sleeping, it was a real weight off my mind. All I needed to do now was to accept the interview offer of 4^th January and change my flights. I am now flying home on Monday 19^th December so I will be home for Christmas and my birthday which will be nice, although it is a shame that I won’t be able to travel to Inner Mongolia and Hong Kong in the Christmas break like I had planned.