Not a Wasted Word

Sometimes it seems I have two conflicting personalities. There is a part of me that truly loves traveling. I revel in discovering a new place, and so many of my most salient memories are of my trips to Europe and Central America. But I’m also a homebody. I take great comfort in the familiarity of home and routine. And I always miss my family so much when I’m away.I will admit, leaving my kids on Saturday morning was hard. Really hard. I had to leave in a hurry because I didn’t want them to see me cry. I barely got to hug my husband. I was also running late, which didn’t help. They handled the actual good-bye really well, which was probably because I took BART so the wouldn’t have to watch me walk away at the airport. They were happily distracted by the TV when I finally shut the front door.

I wish I could say I skipped away from all my responsibilities, excited for a new opportunity, but instead I spent the walk wiping away tears, wishing I could wipe away the enduring sense of dread.

My actual trip to Ecuador was nothing but luck. A BART train was pulling into the station as I came down the escalator (they only come every 20-25 minutes on the weekends) and there was no line to check in at the airport. For some reason I got bumped up to the “sky priority” seats, which means I was basically in first class. I’ve NEVER flown first class, and to say I was excited would be a grave understatement. They served drinks in actual glasses and gave us dinner and the movies were free. I even enjoyed a tequila, just because I could.

I had a five hour layover in Mexico City. That sucked, but I killed an hour in a book store (oh my how I LOVE Spanish language book stores, I’m like a kid at Christmas in them) and treated myself to dinner (and two mezcals), before I watched a movie on my iPad. (I had downloaded movies on the Netflix and Amazon apps, along with Hoopla so I could watch without wifi – technology is f*cking awesome). 

My flight to Ecuador left at 1am (11pm my time – Central and South America don’t observe DST so they are only two hours ahead of the west coast right now) and I tried to get a little sleep. I managed better in that giant seat than I would have otherwise and I think I got a good two hours in. Still, I was pretty exhausted when I landed in Quito.

My host family came to get me, but they were bringing their son to the airport too, so I had another hour and a half of waiting until they came. 

They are a very nice couple, and have hosted MANY students over the years so it all comes really naturally to them. Their house is very cute. They have five dogs who don’t come in the house, but are very friendly when I go into the yard. My room is very cute, and the bathroom is right next door. So far they’ve served two meals I would never eat at home, but I enjoyed them both well enough.

I slept for about three hours after breakfast, until noon Quito time, then I just hung out in my room for a bit reading. After almost 24 hours on planes or in airports, I soaked in the silence of the little house on the hill. 

After lunch they took me to a nearby park and they took the dogs in one direction while I set off in another. I ended up hiking for three hours! It is a beautiful park with some incredible views; I look forward to running there a couple times this week.

My husband asked that we not FaceTime tonight because my son has had a really hard time with me being gone. I miss them and wish I could talk to them, but I understand and respect my husband’s concern. Maybe tomorrow.

Now it is almost 9pm Quito time, but only 7pm my time. I need to fall asleep soon because I have an early morning tomorrow. Luckily, between the lack of sleep last night and the long hike, I don’t think it will be that hard to fall asleep. 

I’ll leave you with some pictures from my hike. 

{I’m struggling to write this week–the words will not come!–and I found this post (that I thought I lost) in the Notes app on my iPad, so I decided to put it up. Sorry it’s kind of non sequitur.}

 When we bought our house in 2012, we felt nothing but relief. The housing market in San Francisco is well known for being totally insane — only 30% of homes are owned in the city (the rest are on the rental market) so there are never many houses available to buy and the ones that are get bid on by dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people.

The rental market is similarly insane, and many people live in fear of being evicted if their place is rent controlled (via the Ellison Act, so that owners can sell their property) or getting a notice of rent hikes to the tune of $1 or $2K A MONTH. Buying a house in San Francisco provides an amount of security that isn’t necessarily present elsewhere. 

In 2012 the housing market was still recovering from the recession. In San Francisco the real estate market never really dipped, but it did flat line for a while, and finding a house was probably easier than it had been in the past. Still, we habitually put in bids at $50K over asking, only find out that the winning bid was $120K over asking (for a $550K house) AND the buyers were paying in cash. We felt certain we’d never find a house we could afford.

Then we did. And we were ecstatic. The conversation about where we’d eventually live when our 800 sq ft, black mold infested apartment no longer accommodated us had always been a tense one. My husband was insistent that we stay in the city: if that didn’t work he wanted to move across the bay to Oakland. But my parents, and my job, are on the peninsula. I didn’t relish the idea of having a notoriously traffic-jammed bridge in between me and my life. 

Buying a house in the city was not just about having the security of our own home, where no one could evict us or double our rent, but also allowed us to avoid some difficult decisions about where we’d go if we couldn’t stay in San Francisco.

So yes, I’m still incredibly happy that we bought our house (especially when we did – we got a great interest rate). Having said that, homeownership is a total bitch. Holy shit do we spend a lot of money on maintenance! And the fixes are only ever necessities–we never make unnecessary improvements. 

This past winter we found out our heating system was insulated with asbestos. It’s not like we were breathing the stuff, but if the ducts got hit or moved (or, say, shaken in an earthquake), we’d basically have had cancerous materials floating up through the ducts. So we had to get the whole thing taken out, including the furnace, and a new heating system installed. That happened last month, to the tune of $4K.

We also have water damage. Now I don’t know much about water damage, but I can tell from the way people look at my pityingly and say, Oh I’m so sorry to hear that, like I’m announcing I have a terminal illness, that it’s probably pretty fucking bad. Right now it’s only in one spot in the main part of the house, but the back addition–the “sun room” where we eat and above where our tenant has his kitchen–is riddled with it (not down in the tenant’s unit though, thankfully). The back room didn’t used to bother me because our plan was to tear it down and build inside stairs so we could live in the tenant’s unit. Now that moving down there is not the plan, it’s stressing me out. Big time.

There are also little things. We had an electrician fixing some shady outlets and possibly adding a circuit breaker. She found a bunch of live wires that went no where and had to pull them out or cap them. We constantly have slow draining issues in our sink and bath tub (which are in our ONLY bathroom). The refrigerator needs to be replaced, but the space for it is so small it’s hard to find a model that will fit. You all remember the mouse-eating-our-washing-machine-tubes-fiasco of late last year. It’s just thing, after thing, after thing.

Frequently our parents’ “presents” to us are to get something fixed, like our faulty front gate and a portion of the electrical work that was done. This is very much appreciated, as I’d rather get something fixed than acquire stuff we don’t need. But we pay for most of the fixes, and we usually spend the money slated for savings on our house. 

I sometimes wonder if homeownership is all its cracked up to be. Here in San Francisco it is almost a necessity if you want to stay for the long haul. We wouldn’t be able to spend a year abroad if we didn’t own our house (my sister’s boyfriend can’t join her for a year of grad school in London because he has to keep their rent controlled apartment–which is a disgusting pit of a place). It’s not that I’m not grateful, it’s just hard. And I wish our house weren’t so old and so cheaply made–seriously EVERY expense was spared–and didn’t require so much work. 

Let’s just hope the water damage doesn’t leave us underwater.

Do you own your home? How do you feel about homeownership?

So I lied when I said there were no other opportunities this year. On Sunday I actually applied for a job that went up earlier last week. It was at the same high school that I applied with last year and then was informed immediately that it was an inter-district transfer and no one would be interviewed. I truly assumed this other late posting was the same. But I applied because I promised myself I would apply to any high school job posting in the area.

I sent my confirmation email on Wednesday, assuming I’d get that same quick reply. They called me on Thursday to schedule an interview.

I was excited to get the call because at the time I was finishing packing my room and having a minor panic attack about how I’d manage to teach in five different rooms on two campuses next year. I was seriously freaking out that I couldn’t do it.

Mostly I was just excited to know I can get an interview without any connections. Sure it’s the end of the hiring season and a lot of the better candidates have been hired elsewhere, but hey, it’s better than not getting the interview under those circumstances.

I went to the interview Friday morning. I feel like I did better than I had at the other two interviews. But the woman who walked out as I was walking in is exactly who you think of when you imagine a Spanish teacher: little Hispanic lady, complete with blouse and sweater. And then the woman who walked in after me was recognized by one of the interviewers, who was really excited to see her. So yeah, I think I did well and also think I have absolutely no chance of getting the job.

Yes, I know I do have a chance. But really, I probably don’t.

And you know what, I’m not nervous at all. I’m supposed to hear back on Monday, and I’m not stressing in the least. And I think that’s because I don’t expect to get it.

I think I’m actually way more nervous about the prospect of actually being offered a job, as I am at the idea of being rejected.

I realized this after the interview with my high school. I didn’t think that interview went super well, but I thought it went okay, and I felt I had a higher chance of getting that job because of my few connections. I was a MESS in the week following that interview. A total and complete disaster.

But then, when I didn’t hear on Thursday, and I assumed I didn’t get the job, the stress went away. Waiting until they eventually got back to me on Tuesday was no problem, because I was sure at that point that I didn’t have the job.

Clearly the idea of getting a job offer is crazy making for me. And I have to delve into why that is.

For one thing, all of these high schools have a start time of 8am. I thought my high school had a start time of 9am now, but evidently zero period, which starts at 8am, is mandatory. It’s basically five classes on a seven period day. All the other schools are seven period days, so they start at 8am too. If I got one of those jobs, I wouldn’t not be able to bring my daughter to school in the mornings.

My school starts at 8:30 next year, and my principal honored my request for 1st period prep, so I don’t technically need to be on campus until 9:20. Even if there is horrible traffic, I will make it on time.

This gives me incredible piece of mind. Being there for my family, at least one more year, is important to me. I think that is the main reason I have been so stressed at the prospect of actually being offered a job.

But there is more to it. I’ve been at my school A LONG time. I know the people. I know the place. I know the systems and the expectations. It’s my second home. I have a lot of colleagues I consider friends, even if we don’t visit outside of school hours. A couple are true friends that I do see outside of work (or at least talk to). The idea of leaving all of that, and having to make a place for myself at a whole new school, is terrifying.

Also, what if I’m shit at teaching highschoolers? What if they rip me apart?

There are also the other things, like losing tenure and the security that comes with it. Being observed and knowing they can just not invite me back, without any justification what so ever, will be nerve wracking. Especially after how hard it’s been to get interviews and the rejections that have come after them. What if I lose my new job and can’t find another one?

So yeah, it turns out I’m actually terrified of getting a new job. And I really don’t feel ready to succeed at a new school next year.

I have a lot of work to do this year to make myself a more competitive candidate. And that work isn’t just about convincing others that I’m ready for the job, it’s about convincing myself that I’m prepared to do well somewhere else.

This whole experience has taught me so much. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to become more self-aware and understand that I need to grow professionally. Next year I have the right schedule to learn some new skills and build my confidence. Hopefully next spring the interview process will be very different.

I finally heard from my high school. I didn’t get the job. 

I have to tell my district that I’m leaving by the end of the month (or I break next year’s contract and they can take action against me for that), which is when I leave for Ecuador anyway, so that was my final opportunity to find a new job for next year. I’ll have to wait until next spring to start again. 

I have A LOT of work to do this coming year to make myself a more competitive candidate. I hope it helps.