Pre-K Promotion

Just when I thought I was on track (maybe not a clear track, but still...) the deck gets reshuffled. I began my current job as a preschool teacher in July. Eight two year olds led by myself and a co-teacher. I wrote lesson plans, got to know the parents, got into a groove with the co-teacher, and pretty much had it figured out. Then the pre-K teacher gave his notice and within sixteen hours I became the new pre-K teacher.

Yup, I got promoted (if you want to call it that) to my own classroom with older kids (3-5 years old) and now have to relearn my whole job. I need to read up on the age group (because I've never worked with kids this age), write a new lesson plan (school starts on Monday), and get to know the kids (who are slightly confused with the changes). It's a challenge, but the freedom is good and I like the older kids. I just wish it came with more than a $1 raise.

In other news I'm still battling that landlord from last month. Quick recap: I rented a weekly paid room in what is basicly a boarding house, but after three days found that my roommates were having curb side narcotic drop offs (like pizza!). I moved out and have been trying to get my money back for the last two weeks. I call the guy every day and on 8/28 he texted me back saying "My apologies for not getting back to you. I'm traveling and will be back in town this weekend. I will call you and we will get together and settle up." Well, the weekend came and went with no phone call and I started my daily calls back up on Monday. Finally last night I called him from the bus stop and said, basically, that it had been two weeks and if I didn't hear from him by Monday I would explore other options. Low and behold, he texted back (this guy REALLY doesn't want to talk with me) claiming he texted me last Sunday asking for my address and the name of the roommate that was having drugs delivered. I never got a text, but that's beside the point, and I told him this morning that I was not going to name names. They were nice guys, just involved in stuff that, as a teacher, I can't get mixed up in. I haven't heard back but I've given him a deadline and if he doesn't stick to it I'm going to get vindictive (legally, of course).

Alright, enough chatter. I'm heading back to finish next week's lesson plan.

RVs & Text Books

“You are never too old to set another goal 

or to dream a new dream.”
- C.S. Lewis

It's Saturday evening, the first of a three day Labor Day weekend. I feel like I've been very productive today, applying to a few environmental education jobs as well as the United Nations and Peace Corp (just because, I guess). I also spent some quality time looking for cheap motor homes on Craig's List and Camping World, which is always fun.

One of the great things about living in my car was that if I wanted to leave an area I could just go. I didn't have a car payment so if I was out of work for a while I always had place to sleep and I knew no one was going to tow me away (at least not for lack of money). Now that I'm looking at RVs I'm realizing that it will force me into gainful employment for at least the next few years, which I'm not a huge fan of. Some of the coolest jobs I've had paid the least and I really don't want to be forced into a well paying office job.

Speaking of well paying jobs, I made $64 dollars today! When I worked at the University of Massachusetts I was charged with sorting the mail and distributing it to faculty and staff. It's pretty common for textbook publishers to send a copy of new textbooks to professors and graduate students, just to see if they want to use the book in their class (ie: make their students each buy the newest edition). I guess the publishers didn't update their mailing lists that often because we would get books for faculty that didn't work at the University anymore. Some of those books I put out for free, but I ended up saving a bunch of them to read later. This summer has been nuts and I didn't get around to looking at most of them so I posted seven on Amazon and voila! $480 in the last 1 1/2 weeks. Not bad at all.