guitar player's journal

[guitarplayer]

Yeah plenty to keep us busy @mF!

Meanwhile, I had a few days of a 'view from above' sort of meditating on life. ERE book helped! Plus reflecting over a longer stretch of time also helped.

What am I doing now then?

Clearly, I have a lot of fun dabbling in coding so I will continue doing this, even if it remains a hobby. Maybe similar to how in 2020 I started studying Maths and Stats and had a lot of fun doing it and now I am doing stats at work.

On that note, I have switched to Ubuntu 22.04 and I am establishing presence on GitHub. And I would've not been myself had I not tried to find out get to the bottom of it. I am full aware this is a late start to get into this sort of stuff and I will never ever manage to know everything about any of the bits I am looking at in the world of software, computers and all that. This is fine, I had lots of good fun in life thus far, no way to have it all.

I am split between trying to apply for variety of jobs now or doing it next year because where I am at, I am in fact content with a lot of freedom in how I get things done. Plus I am aware I will likely have no issue working from Spain for a month later this year and also take some holidays whilst in Spain. Plus I am now working on something that I think I can generalise to a level where I can upload it on GitHub as a template to have as an item in my portfolio of stuff I can get done with code. So yes, it is cozy this way.

Besides it might not be long that we will see a bigger shift anyway. There is a few things lined up but what I look forward to most is getting rid of the loan we have on the flat we live in which will happen summer next year.

But, to draw on some most recent forum posts on job hunting, I might just apply for a few jobs if they look interesting. Because there is not much if anything at all to lose.

ETA: on the 'other' front, I splurged and got a replacement battery holder for my electro acoustic, plus a lead cable, for a total of £25. I have an old Line6 UX2 and aiming to do recording.

[Egg]

Having done data engineering for about 5 years, my opinion is that it's thoroghly meh - because you're expected to cobble together a data pipelne out of a ton of different small tools, services and programs/scripts. There's no type-checking or almost any other kind of guarantees between the steps in the pipeline, often no easy way to test-run the pipeline. There are dozens of alternative tools for each task in the pipeline (generally, the easier something is, the more open source solutions emerge), so you'll be switching tools often, with no room to gain mastery with any of it. Overall, it's not very satisfying, and feels more similar to DevOps than to coding. DE can be a good stepping stone to some more interesting jobs though.

Plus one to this. I've ended up doing some data engineering recently (not 5 years of it, though!) and it's much less enjoyable than writing application code in my opinion. And I say this as someone who prides myself on being pretty good around deploying and maintaining infrastructure compared to the average software developer. But plain old full stack web dev is the most fun for me. Data (including data science in most cases as far as I can tell) sounds much more interesting than it actually is, day to day. But I guess it'll at least be a growth area with AI

[guitarplayer]

Thanks for the input @Egg! Yeah I don't think I will ever be flying at a level as high as any of the two of you, but I guess to some small extent - I am doing what you describe already now.

My kitchen door exit (one of them) is to get a bursary to train as a Mathematics Teacher in a year and migrate to Outer Hebrides to get remote islands salary top up, swim in the ocean, play Scottish folk music and ponder the world. ERE is good this way in that those low expenses just make this sort of stuff possible.

ETA: Realised that I have been running on a mathematical debt. The last year of my BSc in Maths and Stats - I have not assimilated this fully. I started doing review last year in July but this got derailed with buying the flat. So I am going to pay that debt back, and fully assimilate the material from the BSc, particularly the last year. Why not? I have time and I enjoy it.

[JollyScot]

I will say the winters in the outer hebridies are pretty brutal. But you would get the summer holidays to enjoy it. I would try a trip in winter to see how you find it if you really want that as a back up plan.

University advisors really pushed trying to get people to do Maths teaching back when I finished my degree in 2008....So Long ago now. I would assume they are still desperate to get proper Maths teachers. Unfortunately for them they can earn so much else where very few bother.

I wouldn’t be willing to put up with all the nonsense around actual teaching to consider it. However I know a couple of people who enjoy it. One is in a small school like the outer hebredies would be. Less nonsense seeps in there.

I have a feeling being a teacher in Glasgow would be an absolute shit show every day.

[delay]

University advisors really pushed trying to get people to do Maths teaching back when I finished my degree in 2008....So Long ago now. I would assume they are still desperate to get proper Maths teachers. Unfortunately for them they can earn so much else where very few bother.

In The Netherlands there is also talk of being desperate for teachers. Yet at the same time, the job of teacher is becoming less and less attractive. A teacher used to be a prestigious job with teachers owning a sailing boat or a holiday house in the Alps. Salaries have declined sharply since the 1980s. How can you be desperate for something and reduce the reward at the same time?

At all schools I attended before universty, the head teacher was also the head of the school, and taught classes himself. Now I hear that schools have layers of management. I talked to a biology teacher who had grown into being a teamlead. As a teamlead, she does not teach classes herself! Above her are the school directors led by a school president.

Perhaps there is less danger of this in the Outer Hebrides

[Seppia]

!
As someone who often finds the water in lake Como in May WAY too cold for a swim, I admire your insan…ehm… toughness willing to swim near the arctic circle

Jokes aside, like the backup idea of being a teacher, it’s always been one of my post-FIRE ideal paths as well.
I liked the idea of being useful to society and having plenty of time off.
I considered this path as a career when I was very young but the salary was a put off, but when salary isn’t important any longer… why not?

[guitarplayer]

Thanks all.

@JollyScott, so I got my 1st class BSc in Maths and Stats, not least with help of the pomodoro technique I got from you, and yet those highly paid jobs seem elusive. But then are they? Anything above median (or less, like in the past, though now I am I think around median) is a hard pass for this psyche, why bother? Though once there, don't mind. Preferred indifferent.

I guess one has to look at all the edges of a person to see how the person comes together. Late start, lots of past life that is sort of almost distracting, think I am about your age judging by when you got your degree. Not to complain, life is good.

@Jollyscott @delay haha yes, I can completely see how in Glasgow this would be quite an adventure to be a teacher from top (management) and bottom (students). I worked in a couple of schools in the past actually, but they were alternative. For the Outer Hebrides strictly, could be going to be a teacher there for a year or two as a test. From all the Scottish archipelagos I only have first hand experience of Orkney, and have been to Skye a few times.

I think at this point in life, I have to definitively part with the idea of settling for a particular lifestyle, occupation or place for life. If anything it would happen by chance.

Primarily, I would think along the lines of getting another moated profession into the tool box, plus I would welcome one year of being paid to be a student, that is no obligations other than to learn, and one extra year of guaranteed employment, with indeed a few thousand pounds bonus for signing up for going places remote which is down my alley anyway.

@Seppia, Como is such a gem to swim in, been there after your recommendation! Otherwise, in Poland there'd be guys with a chainsaw cutting up ice on a lake near the city where I studied and we'd then jump in - this is more extreme than swimming in the ocean. Then again, people are extreme all sorts of ways. Your lifestyle of slow globetrotting AND making bank is pretty extreme to me!

Back to teaching, with the UK credentials and a couple years experience in remote Scotland, move then to an international school somewhere in Italy or similar - this would be good. EREr's children also end up in schools (mostly) - teacher who's an EREr could suit.

[JollyScot]

Here is my approximate 16 year career with various gaps as I attempted to retire.

UK - £24,500 (£14.50 ph) - Well my first role post graduation paid this.
UK - £32,000 (£19.00 ph) - Rise in the intial 4 years.
CH - £65,000 (£33.90 ph) - Jumped when I moved country.
CH - £86,000 (£44.80 ph) - Rise in the 3 years (part was fall in £). - first retire attempt
UK - £144,000 (£85.70 ph) - Jumped when I started contracting.
UK - £192,000 (£114.30 ph) - Rise over the last 7 years.

The contracting doesn't work out as full time however due to the length of the work and duration between roles, so I have included an estimated hourly rate based on hours I work.

So with respect to high paid jobs it probably won't land immediatly unless you get in the big banks or big tech as your start point. Once you include tax the contracting hourly rate vs the normal job achieved in Switzerland is actually quite close. Assuming you were working full time at both.

[dara]

!
As someone who often finds the water in lake Como in May WAY too cold for a swim, I admire your insan…ehm… toughness willing to swim near the arctic circle

Jokes aside, like the backup idea of being a teacher, it’s always been one of my post-FIRE ideal paths as well.
I liked the idea of being useful to society and having plenty of time off.
I considered this path as a career when I was very young but the salary was a put off, but when salary isn’t important any longer… why not?

Honestly from what I heard getting a job as a teacher must be one of those postitions that sound better on paper than they actually are. One tends to romanticise these kind of jobs but the day-to-day reality is different. I understand it is a plan C or something but if money really wasn't an object you couldn't find any other better way to spend your time? Especially given all the red tape and bullshit that comes with it.

[guitarplayer]

Thanks @dara. I almost want to say that there is no such things as a day-to-day reality but then an anti postmodern thunder will strike me.

I do think though that in human experience heaps are coloured by perception and 'reality' hits only occasionally. Like in the story of a postmodernist in a failed airplane in the sky (tell me now that gravity is just a construct), or in experiments of Tversky and Kahneman (or more recently Dan Ariely and others).

One could almost say that romanticism is as real a part of the equation as day-to-day reality. At least short term.

Personally I like what Kieslowski (of Decalog, Three Colours or Double Life of Veronica) had once mentioned which reportedly came from Hanna Krall, that sometimes he (Kieslowski) took breaks from making movies to gather more life, collect more life. There's a very nice phrase that he used for it, but I see it does not translate. I could see myself teaching for this reason.

[guitarplayer]

@JollyScott, this is impressive. both the pay progression, and sticking at it for 16 years (albeit with breaks). I guess it would be fair to say that the pay progression made it easier to make it that long.

From other news, finally got myself a lead cable to connect this to this. DW tells me to go get myself a room - apparently the cheaper end music studios in town charge £4/hour for solo musicians.

[dara]

I understand that teaching is important and noble and mathematics very useful. I'm just saying there is a difference between thinking this plus liking mathematics and teaching it on a daily basis to children who are mostly not interested in the subject. Add to this all the nonsense that comes with the position (bureaucracy and workplace politics) and I fail to see how this would be the thing one would choose to do every day if we took money out of the equation (I'm not even talking about the inflexibility aspect that you have as many classes as the school decides - no more, no less and if you decide to move during the schoolyear you probably screw your children over because they will get a mediocre subsitute teacher for the remainder of the schoolyear).

You could also give private lessons - maybe those kids are more motivated to learn and you can make your own schedule. Then you have a lot of time for other things as well. The morning hours are nice because everyone is at work.

[guitarplayer]

Yeah, so I think you fail to see how this would be the thing one would choose to do everyday if we took money out of the equation because you understand rather than feel that teaching is important and noble and mathematics very useful. I think if you felt it instead of understanding it then you would see how this would be the thing one would choose to do everyday if we took money out of the equation.

[jacob]

I understand that teaching is important and noble and mathematics very useful. I'm just saying there is a difference between thinking this plus liking mathematics and teaching it on a daily basis to children who are mostly not interested in the subject.

(my bold)

That! This holds all the way up to university level. I suspect those who self-select to become teachers and professors love the process of learning and teaching so much that they are blind to the fact that this only holds for a minority of humans (maybe 10% of any classroom). For the other 90% it's just a heavily structured daycare center for people between ages 5 and 25.

Anecdote: When I was interviewing for grad school, the panel of professors asked why I wanted to go. I said that I wanted to become a professor, because I wanted to teach undergraduates who loved physics as much as I do. They somehow found that funny. I didn't get their point until I had TA'ed for a while.

I wonder whether teaching old folks is different. The kind of old folks who aren't there to just a CE requirement box checked. The kind that "wants to go back to college". Or do they just return as entitled consumers expecting a performing monkey up front.

As for me, I've found "teaching" on this forum to be the best compromise. It's fairly easy to figure out who the 10% are ... while ignoring the other 90%. And I think the ratios are much better here too. Probably the inverse of what they are in a mandatory institution.

[Seppia]

Well, in my case I know I would like teaching… because I’ve done it!
Sure 90% of the kids don’t care, but my unusual mix of basic cynicism and positive attitude* makes it tolerable for me.
There is nothing (I really mean: nothing) more fulfilling for me than seeing a kid learn new stuff and be happy/surprised (s)he now knows how to do this new thing like the grown ups.



*I am someone who has around zero faith in humanity, but weirdly this makes me numb to the negative stuff (I assume that is the norm) and excited about the positive.
I tend to get motivated by the ONE kid that cares and don’t care about the others.

[Henry]

I wonder whether teaching old folks is different.

Learning, to me, involves two non-negotiables: the ability/willingness to learn new things and the ability/willingness to change one's mind on old things. So the expression "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" has a corollary "you can't teach an old dog to stop doing old tricks." An old person put in a challenging learning situation becomes as disruptive as a child put in a challenging learning situation. Not to say there are not exceptions but generally speaking, it explains why adult children drop their aging parents at Senior Day Care and not Senior Computational Physics Classes at their local strip mall.

[dara]

Well, in my case I know I would like teaching… because I’ve done it!
Sure 90% of the kids don’t care, but my unusual mix of basic cynicism and positive attitude* makes it tolerable for me.
There is nothing (I really mean: nothing) more fulfilling for me than seeing a kid learn new stuff and be happy/surprised (s)he now knows how to do this new thing like the grown ups.



*I am someone who has around zero faith in humanity, but weirdly this makes me numb to the negative stuff (I assume that is the norm) and excited about the positive.
I tend to get motivated by the ONE kid that cares and don’t care about the others.

If that's true it's great. The world would need more teachers like you. But if there is literally nothing more fulfilling than that for you, why are you not pursuing it? I understand your job pays way better but at one point one has enough saved before actually retiring that the modest salary (+investment income) would cover one's expenses. You could coast to FIRE while doing something meaningful.

If I had it that clear what gives me so much fullfilment I'd definitely pursue it before reaching FIRE despite the (much) lower pay.

[Seppia]

We are hijacking guitarplayer’s journal, sorry.

As you mentioned, my job pays significantly better (which is important because we are not at the level of assets that make me comfortable in pulling the plug now), but also provides other side benefits that we are not willing to give up yet.
We have been basically slow traveling the world on someone else’s dime, and slow travel is currently very high on our priorities.
We plan on settling down (probably in our home town) a few years from now, when DS will have perfected his English and seen the world enough that he can grow up with a broader understanding of life on this planet.
That’s the moment where I’ll actively pursue a teaching career

[guitarplayer]

Yeah crap I’m gonna hit 500 posts and still not be fi.

No but really it’s fine, If this continues for much longer I count on @mathiverse to post a link to a discussion on teaching which we surely have on the forum, or I’ll dig one out.

[mathiverse]

I gave it a go, but I couldn't find any useful threads on teaching as a profession. It doesn't help that I can only recall various journal owners who discussed their teaching experience (grundomatic and candide - full time, berrytwo - substitute) rather than any threads with that topic. You may have better luck than me finding a relevant thread! Or maybe that is a thread that ought to be created.