Je suis désolée

So I was just reading my previous 8 posts, and I came to the realization that the majority of them are just bitching.  In lieu of this discovery, I am going to do my best to make all subsequent posts more positive.  I need to let go of the anger & annoyance and just accept things for what they are.  My life is actually pretty good.  I have a great marriage, a wonderful little boy, a decent house, and we can actually survive if I don't have a job (not that I'm going to stop looking, though).  This blog needs to be about productivity, not complaints.  À tout à l'heure!

J'estime que je suis inutile

So for the first time since the week before my 15th birthday, I am unemployed. I keep going through all the choices I made along my educational path and am kicking myself for many of them. For instance, why did I have to love French? Why did I always feel Spanish was such an inferior langauge that I refused to ever learn it? I'm thinking that after social studies, I will be learning Spanish and getting an endorsement in that.

I wasn't officially fired; the new management company just decided I wasn't going to fit with their master plan to save a failing school. The rational part of my brain recognizes that the school will most likely go under next year anyways: from what I hear of this year's 11th graders, it is unlikely they will have adequate MME/ACT scores to convice the charter university to remain open. That is, unless the teachers help them cheat, which apparently is all the rage in standardized testing. They fired several other GREAT teachers, so I know it isn't a reflection of my abilities as a teacher. I can come up with all these wonderful reasons that I am not a bad teacher, and I am not a bad person. It's just there is something in my internal wiring that says "YOU MUST BE EMPLOYED TO BE A WORTHY HUMAN." I don't know where it came from; my mother worked on and off during my childhood, and neither of my grandmothers worked. I just feel like I will go crazy being a stay-at-home mom.

I know there are women who do it and love it, but it's certainly not for me. I've only been home 5 weeks this summer, and I'm already bored. I'm not productive when I am at home. I guess I need to develop some sort of schedule. Clean at x time, laundry at y time, etc. I need ADULT CONVERSATION and I have no friends who are mom's and teachers. I have no friends that are stay-at-home moms. I have very few friends in general, for that matter (it's my sparkling personality for sure). I'm atheist, so that rules out a lot of ways to meet people (no church groups or bible studies for me and my boy). I am also worried that Dave will take advantage of this. "You're home all the time, so you need to do all these things while I work on my computer." I will go nuts. It is inevitable.

I had 4 job prospects: I interviewed at Troy Athens, but they went with a teacher who had more years of experience. I applied a part time position in Southfield, but that position was cancelled. I applied to a sub position that is technially an internal posting, but they posted it on a public website (which may speak volumes on the district), so I don't even know if I can truly count that as a prospect. Finally, I applied to a great school that is an hour away. They don't close the application until August 9th, so I have to wait until the 10th or later to even get a call for an interview. My first school is hiring a part time French, but it would cost more in gas to get there than I would make in a part time position. UGH WHY DIDN'T I STUDY SPANISH??!!??!!

Anyways, that's my rant for today. I have a feeling I'll be updating this more as my adventures in unemployment continue. Should I change the title to "Confessions of an Unwilling Stay at Home Mom"? To be continued.