The coin toss

Some decisions are really hard. I'm not all that fast at making decisions at the best of times, but sometimes there are two really good options and it doesn't matter which one I go with. In these cases, the coin comes out. Heads is the green one, tails is the blue one. Flip coin, decision made.

But whenever this has happened to me, I tend to toss the coin and then choose the option which goes against the results of the toss. My housemate considers this dreadful. He can't understand why, having decided that it's too close to call, I can't stick with the coin toss. It took me ages to work out the reason for it, but I think I've got it now.

I reckon it's because I resent being told what to do by a bit of metal. Or perhaps more accurately, I don't like not being able to have something that is good, even if I have a different good thing, when I didn't choose to not have it. The coin tells me 'you can't have the green' to which I respond 'but I really like the green' but if the coin had said I couldn't have the blue, I would probably go for the blue, because I like the blue as well.

This explains why I didn't toss a coin for my decisions about MTS. Other than the fact that they are probably too big to make with twenty cents, obviously. The thing is, I always wanted to work in Newcastle. It's home. But I wanted to make sure I didn't choose based entirely in what I fell like but also on how I can serve others, and how I can grow as well, so I decided to check out Perth unis.

Anyway, I could have decided in the thoroughly blibical method of drawing lots,which would have definitely put me where God wants me to be, but then if the coin had said

Did I get the job?

Short answer: no. I didn't fail, but rather the whole conversation led me to the conclusion that I don't want to train in Perth. Hooray, a decision is made! And! The other major decision, 'When?' is also pretty much made. I am to begin at the start of 2014. This is less than certain, but it's heading that way. Next step is to inform important people of my decisions.

There were heaps of useful things I got out of the conversation with Rosemary though, other than 'I don't want to stay here.' We had a game of Who Do We Both Know, starting with my parents (who know everybody). We talked about long term plans, trainer/trainee relationships, what is available in Perth, lots of other things which I forget. The thing I hadn't thought of was that I should try to raise support for MTS and keep my savings for if I go to Bible college. There you go.

Coming up: why I don't make decisions with coins!

Feeling nervous

So the email thread has resulted in a meeting, I won't bore you with the ins and outs. It's in half an hour. I'm nervous because I need to go to bed in three hours and worry about how much time I will spend there, and also because I now realise I have nothing to say. I can't think of any questions, and don't really have any intelligent, easily shareable thoughts as far as I can see. There are lots of things I want to say (rant about), but since I have never met Rosemary before, I don't know if I will actually say them. But I'm essentially going to an interview, without a hint of preparation. I did spend a bit of time picking my outfit and worrying about my fringe. I wanted to imply "I'm a cool, modest, frugal uni-student type, who can hide an overly long fringe when required." we shall see how successful I will be. Stay tuned...

Responses to emails

Are much easier. Why? Because the subject line is already filled in! Tim gets it easy, his subject line is Re:MTS and it comes up automatically. So, yeah, the point of that is that I got a response to my email from last week. He thought it was great that I was considering MTS and thought Perth was definitely a possibility, probably UWA, and instructed me to contact his wife, Rosemary, which I have duly done. I was not fast at this because I kind of expected her to contact me, since she had my email address too. She didn't and eventually it occurred to me that it was probably my job to be the proactive one. So I emailed her, suggesting a face to face meeting, to which she has not yet replied, due to it only being about two minutes ago. I suppose you're thinking to yourself "Why didn't she just copy and paste the emails like she did last time?" Well let me tell you! It's because for some reason my iPad wouldn't let me select more than one word at a time to copy. Yep. I'm that tech savvy. So anyway, here we are, several inappropriately long sentences later, and you know that I have received one email, and sent one email. Stay tuned for more excitement coming your way at some point in the future!

The hardest part of the email to write

Is totally the subject line. You know, the bit where you summarise in five words or less what the email is going to be about. But what if it's just an email saying hi and telling the news. My mum always writes 'From Mum' or 'From Diana' which solves the problem of having to think of things, but seems a little redundant given that her email address includes her name. I often go with 'Hi' or 'Yo' but I think I like the idea of starting a sentence in the subject and then continuing it in the email, a technique mastered by my eldest sister and demonstrated by me in this very blog post. But none of those options really seemed appropriate for this email I just sent off: Hi Tim, This is a bit out of the blue, but I have been thinking for a while about starting an MTS traineeship with an AFES group. I go to Redemption Church in Claremont and currently work full time. I'm originally from over east, near Newcastle, but moved over here for work. Although my default plan is to work in Newcastle where I studied and know people, I want to explore my options a little before I jump in. This leads me to the question: is there a possibility of doing MTS at a Perth uni? I hope to start next year or maybe the year after. Cheers, Heather Sent from my iPad [I can probably stop this pretentious little line from concluding all my emails, but for reasons that I can't explain, I never do] So what goes in the subject line? I've never really met Tim, although we have been in the same room before, and I don't want to give too much away too soon. Anyway, I went with 'MTS' lacking in creativity though it may be.

Conversations

There's nothing like talking to clarify one's thoughts. This is why I talk to myself so much. I don't think very well inside my head, so I say it out loud, even if there is no one else around. Nice as this is, it is considered odd, and I sometimes find that having another person to talk to even more useful, especially since they might think of things that I lack the broadmindedness to come up with. So when I went back to NSW for a few weeks I had some great conversions about MTS with... Well pretty much anybody who would listen. These included: my parents, various friends, current AFES staffworkers at Newcastle uni, and a current MTS trainee. Unfortuanately I am amazingly lazy, especially when it comes to blogging, with the result of forgetting a lot of important things before I ge the motivation to write them down. Here is the summary of my chats with folks, such as I remember them. Parents: they think I should do it, that it would be good for me, but I should be prepared for how hard it will be. AFES workers in Newcastle: would be happy to have me and I should decide by June for financial reasons. I was mildly hoping that they would say something like "it's good that you're keen, but we're not sure this is really for you." It would have been a blow to my pride, but also a lovely excuse to have an easy life. Oddly enoughg, the time limit is a good thing It will (hopefully) prevent some of the more extreme procrastination to which I am prone. Friends: mostly "that's pretty exciting" and listening to me talk about it. MTS trainee LG: probably the most helpful conversation. This was a mostly one-sided conversation where I listened to h talk about her experiences, the good bits, the bad bits, joys and struggles. She is a good talker, and said lots of things, some of which I knew or had thought of, some of which were new and interesting. - Work doesn't just happen when you're working, it can happen any and all the time, and parties can end up being difficult rather than relaxing. - The relationship with the trainer is an odd one. It's not really boss, or friend, or teacher, but a strange mixture of all those things with perhaps a few other things thrown in. - Students are hard to get to sign up and commit to things. This I knew. Everybody knows that. - It gets hard, but there are plentiful holidays. I'm sure there was more (LG talked for ages!) but that's all I can remember right now.

There's no place like home...

At some point I'll have to decide where I want to do my traineeship. I want to work at a university, but there are plenty of unis, all around Australia and the world where I could conceivably complete MTS. So how do I decide where to go?

The first place I think of is Newcastle uni, where I studied. I have a historyther, already know the staff, the culture, the geography, some of the students, that sort of thing. On top of all this, mosquitoes notwithstanding, I miss Newcastle. So that is an option.

I could stay where I am and work in a uni in Perth. I only know one staffworker in all of the unis here, so I would most likely be with a trainer I have not known for a long time. That could be an issue. My current home is not really that close to any unis. All that being the case, there is a very strong argument that there is a greater need in Perth. There are just less Christians here. Also there are bunch of unis, some of which are quite small, an option I rather like.

Along with these options is the fact that I could go anywhere, providing it has some sort of uni ministry for me to join. I am not restricted to where I have already been. This seems to me like making a difficult road even hard, so I will probably not follow it, but God may have other plans.

My next jobs are then to talk to the people who work here in Perth as well as in Newy to work out what... to do...