REFLECTIONS ON LIFE AND WHAT IT MEANS TO LIVE FULLY…

So early 2010, I lost my job as a project manager in translation. The boss there had made me feel incompetent and dumb. I thought that translation was not for me, project management even less so, so I ran back to where I had been happy before: language classes, teaching, education, and people!

For the next two years, I worked for l’Estrie Language School as an ESL teacher, a pedagogical consultant for teachers and assistant to the director. I helped her hire teachers, did the payroll for teachers, and replaced those who were sick. It is then that I started learning about online education and elearning. My boss Catherine was the kindest soul on the planet, joyful, human, appreciative and always there for us. Two tears later, I started my maternity leave waiting for my first son to be born. When I was ready to come back to work a year later, the school had filed for bankruptcy and they let me go.

One black stripe one white stripe, this is the tapestry of life. Be happy when you are on the white one, because you know that a black one is coming your way, so brace yourself!

You must have noticed, my dear reader, that I had to have a good boss to be happy at work. I was connecting my work and my perception of the job to my boss. And it took me another five years to realize that and to start shifting my mentality.

The next five years, I worked on my own, teaching English and French online or in person, when I could and had energy for, in between 2 sons, born within 2,5 years distance. From October 2012 to October 2017 I was either taking care of the kids and family, or teaching. I was self-employed, setting out to build my company so I took business classes, built a website, learned how to do networking, looked for clients, etc. My husband said this time was the happiest he ever saw me… I loved becoming a business woman. And I loved seeing my confidence and happiness grow, and mindfulness enter my life… But I didn’t make much money, so family vacations were non-existent; I couldn’t visit my parents back in Moldova. This is why I decided to look further and see what I could do now that the boys grew a bit and my routine seemed to allow for more work. I remembered that back in 2013, I worked briefly with a language school for 4 months. My boss Maya was horrible, always screaming and irritated, showing me the door if I had any comments or remarks about the work we did. But she was the one who told me about instructional design and how cool it is to create elearning for employees… Everything that seems really bad to you in the moment will always, always have a bright side later.

Being self-employed is empowering and rewarding. I strongly recommend everyone does that at least once in a lifetime.

In 2016, I started to study Instructional design with TELUQ. I read a lot, did research, wrote papers. I knew that this is a good job for me which will provide financial stability for our family and a way to bring my work experiences together and continue working in a field I like: education. In 2017, I started looking for work – again.