Let's Twist This

🍍 So, funny story.  As you've read, all summer I searched for jobs.  I believe I sent out 25 applications and had 11 interviews. It was down to the wire and I thought my chances of ever getting a teaching job for this year were gone. Schools were starting with new teacher meetings and professional developments.  I thought for sure I'd be back in the real, non-teaching world.  As a last ditch effort, I applied for 5 jobs on Sunday the 12th.  Let me tell you about one of them.

I had seen a posting for this job for weeks, maybe all summer.  I kept avoiding it because I didn't know the area, or anything about that school district.  I wasn't thrilled with what the school looked like from its pictures.  It was further away than I wanted to drive.  I just wasn't feeling it, you know?  I kept clicking past this job. 

To be fair, I consistently clicked past others, as well.  Particularly, any job that said I'd be working with kids that had behavior issues.  That was a no.  I'd done that before and had no interest in going back. 

Even on that Sunday, I reluctantly applied for that one position I'd so easy passed over.  In fact, it was the very last one I sent in.  Application #25.  

At 9:00 on Tuesday morning the 14th, I got a call for an interview.  Yay!   Maybe all hope wasn't lost!  Guys...it was THAT SCHOOL.  The principal was very interested in my resume.  Could I come in the next day, the 15th?  Since no one else had been calling in the last two weeks, why the hell not.

And then I remembered my shaved, purple, NTW hair.  And my yellow fingernail polish.  Crap.

While waiting my turn that Wednesday afternoon, a gentleman was escorted out after his interview.  I heard the principal tell this man that he had one more interview that day (me), and a few more on Friday.  Applicants would know by Friday afternoon; teachers start Monday the 20th.  They were cutting it close.  

I went in and had what I thought was a really good interview with the principal, AP, and ED.  It was more like a conversation, actually.  Very relaxed.  We joked.  No one mentioned the hair.  He told me he'd call me (don't they always).  I sent the obligatory thank you email that evening and prepared to spend the rest of my summer hunting for a job outside of teaching.  BTW, It would be in a self-contained classroom (yay!!!!) with behavior kids......sigh. 

Thursday the 16th at 3:00 I got a phone call from the district offering me the job.  WHAAAAAT?!  It was emphasized that they really wanted me to accept.  According to the HR rep, they were quite taken with me. Huh. I thought they had more interviews on Friday.  Today's Thursday.  Wait-the guy before me was probably interviewing for a GenEd position.  I was a bit confused, but more excited that finally somebody wanted me.

So the job I'd avoided like the plague, working with kids I didn't want to work with, in an area I know nothing about, in an old, seriously needs to be modernized school ended up being the job I was offered.  And the job I accepted.  God is good.  

There's so much more to this story, but I'm beyond tired and have a shitload of stuff to process.  See you next week. 
  

Alpha Mike Foxtrot...

...is what I wanted to say to my former employer, but did not.  I've burned bridges in the past-usually while I was standing on them.  At the board meeting last night, my resignation was accepted.  It's finally official, and with the lack of any job offers, I feel like an integral part of my life is over.  I'm not a teacher any more. 

Back-to-school ads are depressing in a whole new way.  I'm so tempted to get rid of my professional/teacher Twitter page, unfollow teacher sites on Facebook, and delete my Pinterest boards that deal with teaching.  It's too depressing to have them and I feel like a fraud. 

My mother says I should take this time and write a book. That's what people do when they leave jobs, right?  I'm no Omarosa (nor would I want to be), but I could pull it off.  You know, if I had a ghost writer and wanted some drivel turned out in a few weeks. 

I did have a good time with family last week.  Of course, a bad day down the shore is still a good day.  My nephew is awesome and is at that age where I can act like an idiot with him and he's still good with it.  It gave me a chance to relax and decide to quit self-sabotaging.  I came back with a renewed outlook and decided to suck it up and move on.  

My mother won at the AC casinos recently and shared some of her winnings with me and my sister.  Did I put that money away for a rainy day?  Hell, no.  On Monday I got a mani/pedi in OPI's Meet A Boy, Cute As Can Be and a haircut.  I love my nails.  

My hair now looks like Negasonic Teenage Warhead's in Deadpool 2.  Don't get me wrong, I love her hair, and think Brianna Hildebrand is beautiful.  But she's 21, and I'm so not 21.   It's not at all what I went to the hairdresser for; not even close. 

At first I was like "GAH!!!!"  Then I was like "Huh."  I have no teaching interviews in the foreseeable future.  I don't really need to look teacher-professional.  I could rock this look if I wanted. BTW, it's a known fact in the teaching world that things like jeans, faux-hawks, purple hair, sneakers, or reindeer pajama bottoms on the last day before Christmas break get in the way of how well a teacher teaches.  😯

My husband was like, "I love you and all, but don't ever get your hair cut like that again."  Me looking like a boy kinda weirds him out. He's quite the conservative Republican.  Don't know how we get along.  

And so, with renewed confidence I woke up with my NTW hair this morning to a phone call from a principal wanting to interview me.  Then later on today I received an email from another principal wanting an interview.  Yay that I'm still wanted!!!!   Yikes about my hair.  Yes, I know schools are down to the wire and I might be a last resort.  I get that.  Move on.

See you next week. 

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

A few years ago while watching TV, an episode of Mike and Molly came on that spoke to me. It said what I'd been feeling for a bit.  However, I was too...responsible (that's not the word I want, but I can't find it right now) to do anything about it.  Pragmatic!!  THAT'S the word I mean-Thanks NanoLand FB group. Anyway, here's the scene from that episode that I understood in the depths of my soul:



Do you know how many teachers feel like this?  No, me either, but I'm confident it's a high number.  Higher every year.  So, if I, among many others, feel this way, why am I looking for a teaching position after I've resigned from a teaching job? Security. It's all I know how to do.  I have a mortgage and bills. We need health insurance.  We can't afford for me not to have a job.  

Would I like to be like Molly and start a writing career?  Oh yeah.  But, it doesn't pay at first (maybe not at all), nor does it have a benefits package.  And, that was a TV show.  This is real life.  Real life doesn't play out this this and for that, I'm so disappointed. 

Every year I consider participating in NaNoWriMo, and some years I actually do, and twice I've won.  I have a few stories started, one finished and unedited, and many ideas scattered about.  I love doing it, and now that I seem to have more time on my hands, I may do it again this year. I keep saying I have all this time and that I'm unemployed because I want to get myself used to that.

I have all these applications out there and it seems no one wants to hire me.  The interview with the charter school went well, but I had convinced myself they were going to hire me on the spot, based on prior conversations.  They haven't. I'm now second-guessing everything that happened at the interview.  Was that one thing that she noted in my sample lesson the one thing she'll use to disqualify me?  Will she understand that it was nerves?  How many more are also interviewing?  How will they do?   I hate waiting.  It's torture. 

There are jobs I could apply to that are in a geographic location that I find desirable, but that would mean moving.  Packing and selling the house, finding new housing, and convincing the spouse this is a good idea-those are all difficult things.  Especially the spouse thing. It's not in an area where he wants to go. On the other hand, the places that he would like to move to are not locales I'm interested in at all.  😶

So it's back at it.  More job hunting.  More let-downs.  More self-deprecation. More doubt.   

What Can You Do With a General When He Stops Being a General?

And so this is the question I am asking myself.  This blogger finds herself in a position of everything is possible and nothing is possible, simultaneously. It's a scary, awkward, degrading, awful, depressing, anxious, unnerving, (have I forgotten anything?) feeling. To put it succinctly, it sucks.

I was a teacher for 20 years, more if you count the years I was a teaching assistant.  Seventeen years of that was with the same school district. Last week I turned in my resignation.  It's been some time coming.  It's not how I would have done it, but it's done.

Special Ed is becoming rough, yo.  It's no longer help the children where they are and prepare them for the life ahead with daily living and job skills.  Now it's catch them up to their grade-level peers and let's hope their families pick up the rest. It's no longer teach them where they're at. It's now, force them to fit in these spaces and make our scores look good.  I don't know.  Maybe that's not everywhere.  Maybe just where I was.  But it wasn't always like that, which is what upsets me the most.  The district I left was more concerned about what education looks like rather than what education is.  

I've applied to many job openings still in the field of special education.  I've been interviewed for all but two so far.  I've even had a second interview for two.  Sadly, no offer has been made.  My thoughts: 1-I'm expensive to hire. Twenty years of experience brings a high salary; 2-When they call the school for reference, I'm not spoken of well; 3-I really do suck as a teacher. 

Happily, I do have a phone interview soon for a really cool charter school.  It's arts-based.  Singing and dancing?  Count me in!  

So while friends are going on vacation, taking trips down the shore, Hershey Park, Mexico, etc., I've been scouring the Internet and interviewing for jobs.  I've been working out (having not lost a pound), keeping a fancy journal, knitting, reading, dabbling in BW photography, and starting this blog.  We don't know what we're going to need as far as money in the future so we stick close to home. 

Back-to-school sales have taken on a whole new feeling. 

So that's it. First blog post. Just some stuff about my life at this moment.