Monday, June 12, 2006

I may be an IDIOT, but at least I am employed

Yeah, so the last few days have been very eventful in my life. Some good things, some...perhaps blessings in disguise? :)

So while I was out of town helping my sis and her family move, I got some help from a FANTASTIC cousin of mine to get some electronic job application stuff turned in to a few school districts. It became apparent that her help would be necessary after I had the following conversation with a woman at the education placement office at the university:

Me: So I just wanted to make sure that the letter of recommendation that I turned in last week got posted to my file.

Her: Yes, it has been posted.

Me: Great! Well, I'd like to have my placement file sent to these two districts.

Her: You need to make that request online.

Me: I'm out of town, helping my sister and her family move, and we packed up the computer so we don't have an internet connection, and I can't really leave in the middle of packing and clearing to drive around town looking for an internet connection. Can I please make the request through you?

Her: Uh, no. You have to make the request online.

Me: Thanks for your help.

So then I called this cousin, who not only has an internet connection in her home, but whose husband is currently applying for teaching jobs, and who herself was a teacher for a year, so she is VERY familiar with the workings of this particular office AND with the teaching job application process.

And she rescued me. She got the rest of the info that I needed, and got it all sent off, and called the next day to verify that all the information had arrived where it was supposed to, and I was, and am, VERY grateful for her help.

And that was maybe Monday or Tuesday, two weeks ago. So I arrived back at my home on Saturday, June 3, and checked my email for the first time in more than a week, AND! from WEDNESDAY there was an email from one of the school districts, saying that they wanted to interview me for the position!! And it had been sitting in my inbox for THREE DAYS and I had not known it and so had not called back to schedule it and say how interested I was in the position! So I went into Modified Stationary Panic, which, for those of you who are NOT McManus readers, means that I ran like a mad woman IN PLACE instead of careening into walls in my panicked run, and then decided that I couldn't do anything about it except call the school first thing Monday morning, apologize, explain, and hope they still wanted to interview me.

So I did, and they did. So we set up an interview for Tuesday morning, and then I called my good friend Heather, who was not available at the time, and then another good friend, who is teaching French in Texas, and grilled her for more than an hour about what to expect in this interview. (It was for a part time French teaching position at a junior high. I guess I never said that.) And I am SO glad I did! The interview went well, and the principal said he'd be making a decision in the next week and a half, and that there might be a second round of interviews. So I prepared myself to wait.

But I also prepared myself to check up on the other teaching jobs I had applied for, not wanting, as they say, to put all my eggs in one basket. So in the next few days I found out that the other teaching jobs that I had applied for had all been filled. eek. And I FINALLY found a website with links to ALL the school districts in the state, and went to ALL of them, and found only ONE other position teaching French, but they wanted English, too, and I'm not certified to teach English. eek.

So if I didn't get this job...I would have to literally dig up more work at the university (I was planning to do part time at a school and part time at the university anyway - that's what I really WANTED to do, but finding MORE work would involve me "selling" myself to another department), or keep checking for French jobs in these other districts NOT close to where I live and HOPE and PRAY that something came up. And then I got a call from a professor whose department at the university was considering hiring me (that was my main back up if I didn't get a teaching job), and he said it didn't look like they were going to hire me. So...eek.

And then! Friday I got a call from the principal, and he offered me the job!!

YAYAYAYAYAY!

And I was SO relieved - I will have an income this next year! That sounds dumb, maybe, but it was a real worry. (Actually, it doesn't sound dumb. Not having an income is a real worry.) AND since it is a part time position I will get to keep doing work at the university that I LOVE, so I am REALLY happy about it! :) :)

So here comes the "I am an idiot" part of the title of today's post.

I'm going to France in two weeks. That is not what makes me an idiot. :)

I have been planning this trip for about a year, but didn't know, because of the thesis, etc., EXACTLY when I would go. So with the progress that I have made and my chair's trip to Europe, I have recently settled on the dates of my trip. And starting looking for plane tickets. Well, folks, it's peak tourist season in France, and tickets are QUITE a bit more expensive than I was hoping for. But after checking around for a couple of days and getting a sense of the price range, I called the university travel office, and had them look. They can sometimes get better deals, and it's WAY easier for them to check things like the day before and the day after to look for cheaper deals than it is for me.

So after 40 minutes on the phone, we found my tickets. This was last Friday. And we put them on hold until Monday, today, just so I could have a couple of days to digest that I was spending this much money and to make sure it felt ok.

And it did, so I called and purchased the tickets this morning. :) :) I am actually-factually going to France two weeks from today.

And then - I realized that my passport expired in May.

Oh no, I am not kidding. I only wish I was.

So I Googled "passport renewals fast" and found a plethora of companies that will GUARANTEE that you will have your passport before your travel date, and tomorrow I will get all that taken care of, but GOOD GRIEF! It's not like I haven't known for A YEAR that I was going to France this summer. It's not like I really have money to just THROW AROUND on this. I mean, I had a big chunk from a job last summer that I had set aside for this, but I didn't want to use all of it on MY STUPIDITY!!

So that's been my last week or so. Oh, plus the mild panic that I had this morning when I called the district to schedule my contract signing and found out that the next one is the afternoon of the Friday before the Monday that I go to France, and I thought I had to have that done before I could get my keys to my school and take the tour and find out what textbook I'll be using and what other materials are already in the school for French. See, I want this trip to France to be really productive as far as gathering materials to use in my classroom, and so I wanted to know what the school already has and thought that I couldn't do that until AFTER I signed the contract. But the university travel agent guy said that to push my flight back to Tuesday would raise the price $500, so I called the principal and explained, and he said we don't have to wait until after the contract signing to do all that stuff, so I'll be going in on Wednesday. Phew! :)

So I'll be getting a new passport, which will cost me a pretty penny, but I AM going to France, and I DO have a job, and I WILL graduate, and from where I sit, even after all this hoopla, life is looking pretty good! :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad that things are coming together for you. It's amazing how when you're ready for things to start moving along in some area of your life - they happen somehow. Congrats!

Unknown said...

Yay!! It's great that you got the job you wanted. Wonderful feeling, isn't it? ;)

Have fun in France. Take lots of pictures.

Kathryn Thompson said...

I was waiting for something MUCH more idiotic than that. France! Yay! New good job! Yay! This phrase: "Modified Stationary Panic". Yay!