Collegiateness
Went to Pitt yesterday for "Transfer Friday" to ponder options for continuing Ollie's pursuit of knowledge. It was a little weird. I think I was more nervous than he was, possibly because there were lots of people there and I swear I am borderline agoraphobic. I think I was also nervous because I want so bad fior things to all work out well for Ollie, and sometimes I feel crappy that I still don't have a official permanent job and should be making more money blah blah blah. Anyway. Made it to Pitt in one piece, which was an accomplishment due to massive construction surrounding the entire Oakland area. P-burgh, while I love it, is a notoriously tricksy place to drive around. With potholes of doom, bendy curvy roads of death, deer with a death wish, construction confussion and my favorite, the merge-right here-right now! Generally I do a fair job of driving around the city based on my own inmstincts, and was pleased that we made it all around Oakland without too much insanity. Anyway. Pitt will accept 60 of ollies credits, yay. They have a good teaching program, but it's a fifth year program, which means more time in school, but it also means either finishing or 1/2 finishing a masters, and you pretty much have to earn one of those eventually anyway in todays world of teaching. Otherwise, we mostly sat and listened to plastic sounding people give presentations about how AMAZINGLY AWESOME pitt is and HOW LIFE CHANGING everything is and how GREAT THE DORMS are along with other crap that didn't apply to us. We went to eat at the O (the original hot dogshop) which is something of a landmark, having been a gnarly little puryeor of the world's greatest frech fries since forever. A large fry will serious fill the entire plastic cafeteria tray, so don't order one unless you've got at least 4 hungry people. We also schlepped our way to Trader Joes, since the only one is in east liberty, next to Oakland. We even took our own canvas bags, like the good/german kids we are. (I think more stores in the us hould adopt the German practice of charging for plastic bags, it would suck at first, but then we'd all get over it and carry more tote bags.) As always, I was overwhelmed by all the Trader Joe's goodness and and left thinking I should have bought more stuff. We never get any of their many exciting frozen things because it takes us at least 45 minutes to drive back ghome. I wonder if they are gonna get with the program and open more stores around the burgh. We NEED them!
Yesterday was my big bad day off for spring break, woohoo. After our excursion to Oakland I took a nap and then we just slugged around the house the rest of the day. We watched "The Great Dictator" by Charlie Chaplin which was good, not to mention eerie in how exactly right it was. Ollie has been ordering the "Planet Earth" series from Netflix, which is hard for me, because I don't do so well with the nature shows. I accept that carnivores have to kill to live, but I don't like seeing it happen. (especially baby animals! oooh)! This is why I was never sucessful as a hunter, that and lugging a rifle around in snowy woods wasn't so much fun. So that's further proof that even though I was born a grumpy old man, deep inside I'm a total baby.
And Now, for news about an important decision:
The librarian who I am temporarily replacing is thinking she wants to take another year off with the baby (one benefit of working in schools, potential for long maternity leaves!) Sooooooo, on the one hand, I really like the idea of not having to frantically look for a new job all summer. I think I've made a good impression this year, but since I'm at 2 diferent buildings, I still don't feel like I know anyone that well, and hopefully after 2 years, my co-workers/admin would have lots of good stuff to say about me in future letters of reference. Also I would continue to have regular contract pay & sweet benefits. On the other hand: I think I would feel a little like a loser if I still don't have a official contract job. While I like a lot of things about the job, I really dislike the traveling part of it, and dream of a job where I belong to just one building. I think my final decision is that if I see any truly exciting local jobs advertised, I'll apply for them, but I won't kill myself sending applications to every district with a job. Of course, nothing is official anyways, so it could all be a non-issue anyways....
Yesterday was my big bad day off for spring break, woohoo. After our excursion to Oakland I took a nap and then we just slugged around the house the rest of the day. We watched "The Great Dictator" by Charlie Chaplin which was good, not to mention eerie in how exactly right it was. Ollie has been ordering the "Planet Earth" series from Netflix, which is hard for me, because I don't do so well with the nature shows. I accept that carnivores have to kill to live, but I don't like seeing it happen. (especially baby animals! oooh)! This is why I was never sucessful as a hunter, that and lugging a rifle around in snowy woods wasn't so much fun. So that's further proof that even though I was born a grumpy old man, deep inside I'm a total baby.
And Now, for news about an important decision:
The librarian who I am temporarily replacing is thinking she wants to take another year off with the baby (one benefit of working in schools, potential for long maternity leaves!) Sooooooo, on the one hand, I really like the idea of not having to frantically look for a new job all summer. I think I've made a good impression this year, but since I'm at 2 diferent buildings, I still don't feel like I know anyone that well, and hopefully after 2 years, my co-workers/admin would have lots of good stuff to say about me in future letters of reference. Also I would continue to have regular contract pay & sweet benefits. On the other hand: I think I would feel a little like a loser if I still don't have a official contract job. While I like a lot of things about the job, I really dislike the traveling part of it, and dream of a job where I belong to just one building. I think my final decision is that if I see any truly exciting local jobs advertised, I'll apply for them, but I won't kill myself sending applications to every district with a job. Of course, nothing is official anyways, so it could all be a non-issue anyways....