whew!
Long time no post - I'm sure folks care, right?
This was my last semester of grad. school and I didn't have regular classes - sounds easier than it was, in a way. I had to be observed twice by a veteran teacher (this means I have to write and write and write: lesson plans, assessments, worksheets/activity sheets, post-observation conferencing notes and then listen to some woman who's never taught math in high school much less to students with IEPs tell me how I could have done things better although actually she wasn't that bad, on reflection)and then get a ton of papers onto an e-portfolio. This nasty little requirement wouldn't be so heinous if folks at my college had a whit of computer knowledge but, for the most part, they haven't and their directions and explanations were convoluted and needlessly complicated/hedged in with unlikely responses to even less likely possible scenarios ("but if XX should happen, then you could try to do YY")- imagine my 83 year old mother (she won't have a microwave in her kitchen because it's too complicated, okay?)telling a tech-savvy teen how to text message and you get the picture. The bitch is that this is required for graduation - a requirement most of my professors couldn't meet and can't explain/describe.
Being me, I immediately went out and got hired for two different very part-time jobs (I always feel like a weenie with second jobs - my neighbor Greg is working some amazing number of hours a week, like 90 or something insane)SAT tutoring and case management for families of children with autism. I've been pretty busy.
And of course:
we really are moving this time. I still am quite ambivalent about moving to the land of the waving Confederate flag, where the housing market is, if not in free-fall, certainly slumping. And while the market's better here in Baltimore, we live in a small (by today's ginormous mini-mansion standards) three bedroom, two bath cottage/bungalow in the city so we need to make sure it's shiny clean, that everything works like new, that the yard is an 'oasis in the city', etc., etc. The landscaping is pretty much finished, the kitchen repainted and most of the new cabinets up, the main floor bathtub reporcelained, etc. So we'll put it on the market in a couple of weeks and then remain tense until it's finally sold. Yuck.
I'm not good at waiting. I don't care if it's a bus or a medical diagnosis, they're equally stressful for me. I don't like looking for work, even if it's become so much easier now that I'm a certified teacher - in two weeks I go to Nashville to interview with 3 principals/HR managers - and I really don't like looking for work in a place about which I am so ambivalent. Liz's family is great, the area is beautiful, people seem ridiculously friendly, but for me there's no compelling reason to go other than Liz really really really wants to go (but then, there's no compelling reason to stay here in Baltimore, either.)
I'd hoped I could teach overseas and have had offers from international schools, but have been told by more than one lender that in these tight-ass times I'll need to have a job in the area if I want to call a house in Nashville my primary residence - and my dog-training, transcribing partner doesn't earn enough reportable income to swing a mortgage. Hopefully I can make it happen next year, but until then I need to figure out how to stop being a party pooper about this move.
Guess I'm more tired than I knew. Thanks for reading.
This was my last semester of grad. school and I didn't have regular classes - sounds easier than it was, in a way. I had to be observed twice by a veteran teacher (this means I have to write and write and write: lesson plans, assessments, worksheets/activity sheets, post-observation conferencing notes and then listen to some woman who's never taught math in high school much less to students with IEPs tell me how I could have done things better although actually she wasn't that bad, on reflection)and then get a ton of papers onto an e-portfolio. This nasty little requirement wouldn't be so heinous if folks at my college had a whit of computer knowledge but, for the most part, they haven't and their directions and explanations were convoluted and needlessly complicated/hedged in with unlikely responses to even less likely possible scenarios ("but if XX should happen, then you could try to do YY")- imagine my 83 year old mother (she won't have a microwave in her kitchen because it's too complicated, okay?)telling a tech-savvy teen how to text message and you get the picture. The bitch is that this is required for graduation - a requirement most of my professors couldn't meet and can't explain/describe.
Being me, I immediately went out and got hired for two different very part-time jobs (I always feel like a weenie with second jobs - my neighbor Greg is working some amazing number of hours a week, like 90 or something insane)SAT tutoring and case management for families of children with autism. I've been pretty busy.
And of course:
we really are moving this time. I still am quite ambivalent about moving to the land of the waving Confederate flag, where the housing market is, if not in free-fall, certainly slumping. And while the market's better here in Baltimore, we live in a small (by today's ginormous mini-mansion standards) three bedroom, two bath cottage/bungalow in the city so we need to make sure it's shiny clean, that everything works like new, that the yard is an 'oasis in the city', etc., etc. The landscaping is pretty much finished, the kitchen repainted and most of the new cabinets up, the main floor bathtub reporcelained, etc. So we'll put it on the market in a couple of weeks and then remain tense until it's finally sold. Yuck.
I'm not good at waiting. I don't care if it's a bus or a medical diagnosis, they're equally stressful for me. I don't like looking for work, even if it's become so much easier now that I'm a certified teacher - in two weeks I go to Nashville to interview with 3 principals/HR managers - and I really don't like looking for work in a place about which I am so ambivalent. Liz's family is great, the area is beautiful, people seem ridiculously friendly, but for me there's no compelling reason to go other than Liz really really really wants to go (but then, there's no compelling reason to stay here in Baltimore, either.)
I'd hoped I could teach overseas and have had offers from international schools, but have been told by more than one lender that in these tight-ass times I'll need to have a job in the area if I want to call a house in Nashville my primary residence - and my dog-training, transcribing partner doesn't earn enough reportable income to swing a mortgage. Hopefully I can make it happen next year, but until then I need to figure out how to stop being a party pooper about this move.
Guess I'm more tired than I knew. Thanks for reading.