Exploring New Experiences

Sometime during my first two weeks, I met a friend of one of the teachers at school. He is a life coach and leadership coach and we had some great conversations. He invited me into his Exploring New Experiences WhatsApp group, where he posts different activities each week for the group. There’s dancing, meditation, hiking, camping, markets, drum circles, and the list goes on. I got him to add padel, as well, because I really want to play.

I wanted to jump into everything with both feet, but my teaching schedule is very demanding right now and I need to make time for my workouts, some quiet time and getting to bed early.

I’ve attended meditation and hiking and quiz night and last night I went to karaoke. You may know that I have long wanted to try this because my lifelong secret ambition, for which I have no talent, has been to be a backup singer in a band. Not only am I not lead singer material, I’m not even backup singer quality. I’m off key, if someone else is singing I drift to their register, and I generally sound terrible, though I have a lot of heart in my car and shower, belting out my favorites.

Anyway, it was a Christmas themed one, so I arrived with the various holiday accoutrement that I had picked up for spirit week and each person who sang was adorned in my items. It was a small group, but we sat and ate and drank and played cards and went up front whenever it was our turn. When I say our, I mean their. Each person was so good and I was more convinced that I would not be trying this tonight. Eventually, I had enough liquid courage to do a quartet with the group and it was indeed quite fun! I couldn’t even hear myself, so in my mind I imagined I might actually be okay.

I don’t think I’ll get any more activities in before I head back to the States, but we’ll see what the New Year brings!