Barry, I just wanted to tell you something, in front of the whole world. You make my heart happy and you are the only man in the world to me. Thank you for treating me like a princess...
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Meet Neal & Leah
Neal & Leah are my nephew & niece and are two awesome little people! Neal is outgoing, loves to talk on the phone and gives great hugs. Leah is super smart, loves Shirley Temple, and is a 
beautiful ballerina.
beautiful ballerina. 
Thursday, July 5, 2007
job hunt
So, apparently finding a teaching job in Guilford County is not going to be as easy as I thought. The line of eager principals has not formed at my door, as I had imagined, all of them begging me to grace their school with my presence. I have placed phone calls, dropped off resumes, and filled out the necessary online application and its million questions. Just two months ago, I assured my mom that my brother's job hunt struggles were normal, and that nothing falls into your lap. However, this is me!!
The frustrating thing about a job hunt is that everything is reduced to what fits on a sheet of paper, what can be conveyed in a short, written format. So much crucial information is left spinning out of control in the black hole of things unsaid.
The job description is written to include 8th grade English instruction. There is no indication of the first, second, and third grade English instruction you must provide because someone in the past didn't do their job with the child. There is no blurb included on the teen speak you must master to be sure you are not being disrespected when told you are "gangsta", or ascertain a student in trouble from a journal entry about "cutting". In the list of qualifications, you will not see extreme patience with student who makes beeping robot noise during tests to cover up his frustration with his poor comprehension skills or ability to stash a box of muffins in your desk to sneak to the students who put themselves on the bus with no one home to give them breakfast.
By that same token, the applicant frequently doesn't reveal important talent or skills when applying. Reads literature aloud in exciting, bedtime story style or not afraid to jump around classroom like an idiot to keep students' attention are tidbits left spinning in the black hole. No teacher has ever revealed in an interview a refusal to teach anything that bores me, because boring others simply because you hold power over them is cruel. There is no space on the application for knows how to make students feel like the comparative essay on Bonsai and Pine Trees at the bottom of the stack that is read at 1 am thrills me as much as the 74 others I had read previously, before I turned into a sleep-deprived maniac, driven half- mad by dangling participles, misspelled words and run-on sentences as I struggle to make that last smiley face as round and happy as the first. (Is that face mocking me?!)
These things I mentioned- I can do. Yes, I know my material, I have classroom management skills, I have a degree, I have never been convicted of a felony, blah, blah, blah.
But, what you cannot see on my application, Principals, those are the things I want you to know about me!
The things that would make you line up at my door, if you only knew.
The frustrating thing about a job hunt is that everything is reduced to what fits on a sheet of paper, what can be conveyed in a short, written format. So much crucial information is left spinning out of control in the black hole of things unsaid.
The job description is written to include 8th grade English instruction. There is no indication of the first, second, and third grade English instruction you must provide because someone in the past didn't do their job with the child. There is no blurb included on the teen speak you must master to be sure you are not being disrespected when told you are "gangsta", or ascertain a student in trouble from a journal entry about "cutting". In the list of qualifications, you will not see extreme patience with student who makes beeping robot noise during tests to cover up his frustration with his poor comprehension skills or ability to stash a box of muffins in your desk to sneak to the students who put themselves on the bus with no one home to give them breakfast.
By that same token, the applicant frequently doesn't reveal important talent or skills when applying. Reads literature aloud in exciting, bedtime story style or not afraid to jump around classroom like an idiot to keep students' attention are tidbits left spinning in the black hole. No teacher has ever revealed in an interview a refusal to teach anything that bores me, because boring others simply because you hold power over them is cruel. There is no space on the application for knows how to make students feel like the comparative essay on Bonsai and Pine Trees at the bottom of the stack that is read at 1 am thrills me as much as the 74 others I had read previously, before I turned into a sleep-deprived maniac, driven half- mad by dangling participles, misspelled words and run-on sentences as I struggle to make that last smiley face as round and happy as the first. (Is that face mocking me?!)
These things I mentioned- I can do. Yes, I know my material, I have classroom management skills, I have a degree, I have never been convicted of a felony, blah, blah, blah.
But, what you cannot see on my application, Principals, those are the things I want you to know about me!
The things that would make you line up at my door, if you only knew.
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mom and me
