Different choices

Sometimes I wonder how my life could have been different if I hadn’t made the choices that I made or life had gone in a different direction for me. For instance, what if I had actually been good at flamenco dancing and my mum had never taken me to private English lessons? (long story short, after two or three months at flamenco lessons, the teacher called my mum and said to her: “don’t waste your money here, she has no rhythm, it’s useless”)

Later on in life I made choices that are responsible for where I am now in my life. Hadn’t I studied English a University, I might have not come to the UK for an Erasmus year and not met Darren. If I had not met Darren I might have not decided to move permanently to the UK. Or when we realised that our relationship made no sense I could have gone back to Spain rather than stay here.

And that last thought is what I really want to talk about.

At some point I’ve wondered what I would do if for whatever reason I had to go back to Spain. Would I go to Motril or would I choose a different town? To start with, I suppose I would have to go to Motril and stay in the little flat until I got a job and become financially independent again.

And that is the most important issue of all. What would I like to do back there?

I think that I would like a job where I use English very regularly or all the time. Teaching English as a foreign language either in a “academy” (private lessons) or in a School come to mind. At the end of the day, I did do the CAP (Spanish equivalent to the PGCE) and I am almost qualified to teach – I say almost because I would only be able to teach in private schools, as I would need “oposiciones” to teach in a public school, and I have no intention to go through oposiciones ever in my life.

I am not sure I would want to work in a office doing the same that I am doing here (project coordinator in a “domotics” company), unless it’s in English. Mainly because, like I’ve said a few times, all the technical and work-specific vocabulary that I know, I learnt in English and I would find it a bit awkward trying to express myself in Spanish. I know it’s silly, but before I came to the UK I had never had to deal with invoices, delivery notes, databases, consignment notes, excel spreadsheets, purchase orders, gantt chants, etc.

Depending on how financially independent I am, something else I would like to try is teaching cardmaking, or even starting my own greeting cards company. There are lots of stay-at-home mums in my town and I know they would be interested in something crafty. My only doubt is whether sending cards is something that people actually do regularly in Spain and whether it would be enough for me to sustain myself and make a living. Scrapbooking might be a better idea, as people scrapbook for themselves, not for other people. But I am not that experienced in that field… (and would I find the materials and products necessary in Spain? that’s something else to bear in mind)

And then, last but not least, depending on how crazy I am, I might take the Ice-cream parlour business over again. Although it would have a very different business model to what it used to. For starters, we would have three shifts, not just two, so no one has to work for 12 hours with just a half hour break. Then, an overall manager would have to be appointed, as I don’t really fancy having to be there for 15 hours a day like my grandma or uncle used to do. Also, you pay as you order, not the usual Spanish way of paying after you’ve consumed your order (making it very difficult for the waiter to keep an eye on everybody)

So yeah, I suppose one has to make the best of their situation, and although I have no plans whatsoever of going back to Spain in the near future, it is always good to know that I might have several options open for me to try (that is, of course, if the economic situation of Spain was a bit more stable and unemployment wasn’t so high)

But we can’t help but dream, eh?!

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