This week I've been pondering and prodding at the idea of how to expand and strengthen my social network so that I don't feel isolated or at a loss for people with whom to do the activities I love.
Since finishing school, there's been a decided lack of consistent creative production in my life, and one of my main complaints has been that, as an adult in the "real world", outside of the structured environment of school, it's a lot less simple to participate in the 'extra-curricular' activities that were commonplace, especially in grade school. In highschool, my job was to be a student, and as such, I spent my day taking drama, music, creative writing and the like, cost-free (what did I know of taxes!) -- and my friends were already there because they, surprise surprise, had the same job I did.
But once you leave that structure behind, it gets harder to work in creative social activity on a daily basis. Working a "freelance" job as I basically do right now, the hours are great, but it's hard to socialize when you're in a different school among a different set of co-workers every day.
If I do ever settle into a single school rather than supply-teaching, I'm hoping I'll be amongst a fun, caring, social, activity-loving school community. I may even try to fix that in mind as my primary goal for getting a contract (currently, foremost in my semi-conscious thoughts on contract work is the hope that I'll get the kind of class I'd love to have -- specifically at the moment, English-language full-day Jr./Sr. Kindergarten).
But for the moment, I'm not even supplying, and if all goes according to my current plan, I will be back to supplying when school is in. This means I have to make my social network a priority separate from my work community -- and also separate from most of family and friends who, understandably, cannot be at my beck and call all the time, all having, as they do, separate friends, family, work-lives and interests than me. It's great having just a small, tight circle of friends and family, when you all live in the same town and go to the same school and attend the same events. But now that that's all changed (and been changed for quite some time I might add), I think maybe something broader, and possibly (this is still just an idea) more specialized is called for.
Now, so far that all sounds great, but as you may or may not know, I am really standoffish and shy when it comes to new people and new situations. I basically need to get into situations where I meet outgoing people who'll do the work for me, or situations where I meet with the same people so often over so long a period that I can't help having interesting stories in common to talk about and reminisce over. My French Additional Qualification course was great for that -- nothing like getting together for three months with a bunch of people you just finished spending a year in teacher's college with, and learning the same stuff over again in French to create camaraderie based on mutual "aha" moments and eyerolls! But without forking over a thousand dollars and 150 hours every three months to take another course, how am I going to create the right environment for myself to build more social ties?
Well, my current hopes rest in meetup.com -- a website that allows you to search for groups in your area that hold meets for things that interest you. Currently I'm favouring mostly women-centric clubs that do activities like ladies nights out, coffee chats, bookclubs and stuff like that.
Bookclubs, in particular, are an idea I'd been considering with some hope, and which was also recently suggested to me by Nonsense as a way to meet and interact with like-minded people. It occurred to me recently that maybe part of my reluctance these days to read all the deep, heavy (and usually literally thick) books that are coming out by authors I loved in highschool and university might be the fact that there's less motivation to possess a literary education and broad, up-to-date knowledge of current literature when your main conversation partners are five years old. I need people to talk to about what I've read, people to suggest good reads to me and be interested in what I think is a good read. People for whom my sudden insight about the parallels between character development, plot arc and theme in "The Jane Austen Book Club" might mean something and provoke a response.
That all said, it's harder than you might think to find a decent bookclub in the western half of Toronto. However, I've joined a few promising meetup groups, at least two of which have monthly bookclubs, along with other activities. I'm hoping they'll motivate me to both read new stuff, and make new friends.
Wish me luck!
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