Good News / Bad News

Good and bad - this is the story of my life.
Martha Reeves

First, the good news. After being told that my job was being cut (enrollment is down), I got a new job at an award winning urban school. I will be teaching 3rd grade again too! (out of 19 years of teaching, I have taught either 1st, 2nd, or 3rd for 17 of those years).

Now the bad news. My mom's liver biopsy was confirmed. Although we all knew that it was probably cancer (spots like hers don't just appear for no reason), it is still hard to hear it confirmed. She had breast cancer a few years back, so now she goes to the oncologist on Friday to find out her course of treatment (and whether it is a NEW cancer or matastisized from the breast cancer). The thing that has me worried is she wasn't supposed to know the results of the biopsy until Thursday or Friday, and the oncologist called her today. Makes me think it might be worse then she portrays it to be.

Finally!!!

Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock.
Pablo Picasso

Finally! I am no longer in the ranks of the unemployed! As of today I will be a 5th/6th grade teacher, teaching middle school English/Language Arts, Reading, and Social Studies. Quite a change from 1st grade, but much better than wondering how you are going to pay the bills!

Failure and Frustration

Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe.
Sumner Redstone

Well I am ready for success! Particularly because I seem to be experiencing a lot of the other three! No job, no income. Fighting with unemployment..haven't received a dime of it yet. Going through my savings like it was a sieve. I have gone to three interviews after having applied for at least 50 different jobs. Very ego-bruising! It's hard to be up beat when you feel like you are failing. I know that I am good at my job. Now if I could just succeed in convincing the powers that be that I am!

Still Jobless, But Less Joyless

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
Alexander Graham Bell

So I am jobless. There has to be a reason why I am. At first I thought perhaps this was God's way of punishing me for some of the choices I have made with my life, but as the disappointment wears off I realize that is simply not true. I think that it is more likely that He wants me to look inside and see my strengths (yes Laury, you WILL be able to get through this temporary roadblock...yes Laury, you ARE a great teacher, and the right person will see that...etc), something I am often afraid of doing. Self doubt and self incertitude is a cancer that eats at you from within. But it is also a drug that can give you a temporary high from the negative emotions that emanate, and it eventually becomes addictive. You need to increase the negative thoughts and feelings to maintain the levels of anger and disappointment. And usually this results in taking things out on others. I see this in myself constantly. I don't know if this is a symptom or result of my A.D.D., but there are times I relish conflict. It gives me a misconstrued power. It lets me project my strife onto others, so I don't have to focus inward.

I don't know how I am going to pay the bills, and keep my sanity if I don't find a job. But I won't let it depress me. (Worry me...yes. Depress me...no.) I will instead use this time to strengthen the inner me. Less conflict and more concord. Less discord and more harmony...with myself and others. And, then, when I am ready, the right job will come along. The one I am MEANT to have. (Though I DO hope that it happens sooner than later!)

Jobless and Joyless

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
Harry S. Truman

Well, as of Thursday I will be officially unemployed. 17 years of teaching, and now I can't find a job to save my life. The one set of interviews I DID have didn't pan out. Two rounds later, they decided to go with someone else. Most school districts won't even LOOK at me because I don't have an EdM, but how can I go back to school if I don't have a job to pay for it? The media says that there are all these teachers retiring, but what they don't tell you is that there are 10 teachers waiting in the wings vying for each job opening. And at my age, I've been around the block one time too many times. I'm either too expensive, or not educated enough (Doesn't experience count for anything!), or just not the right fit somehow. Maybe this is God's way of telling me that it is time to look for a new career, but I don't know what else I could do that wouldn't mean starting over at the entry level. All I DO know is that this really sucks!

The Job Hunt

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.
Lily Tomlin

Well I am at it again. Looking for a new job. I love the students at the school where I currently work, but the hours are just not conducive to raising a family. (The pay isn't either!) Meetings at 7:15 in the morning every other week? It makes for a logistical nightmare! Especially when school doesn't start until 8, you live at least 35 minutes away, and your daughter's preschool doesn't open its doors until 7.

So Monday night I stayed up late, made and Xeroxed multiple copies of my resume, transcripts, licenses, etc and addressed and labelled several envelopes and mailed them all off. Today they all came back. I hadn't put enough postage stamps on them! I really hope this is not indicitive of how my job search is going to go!

Inservice Introspect

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Will Durant

Ever felt like an old dog? Boy did I ever today. I went to an inservice at my school regarding new reading research. Most of the teachers are these pert young things just out of college, and just entering grad school. They are all taking grad classes that offer the latest in research...all of which is scientifically based and carefully studied and assessed. Definitely not the whole language approach that I was taught back in the dark ages! I must admit, that while we were discussing the topic, I really felt out of touch. Whenever one of them would rattle of the latest acronym (and Education has a gazillion of them) I would have to stop and ask "What's that?" or "Does that stand for....?" However, at the same time it did make me look forward a bit to going back to school and getting my Masters. I guess that is why I went into education in the first place...a love of the continuum of learning, and the act of learning itself.