Not a Wasted Word

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. 

{So… yesterday’s post was supposed to go up today (Thursday) and this post was supposed to go up yesterday (Wednesday) but sometimes you don’t change the schedule date to the next day before “scheduling” and end up just posting something right then and you can’t undo it once it’s done.}

My daughter turned seven yesterday. Seven.

It feels like a really big number, and not just because it’s my lucky number.

I think it seems old because seven if the first year of my life that I really remember. My sister was born and we moved to Hong Kong. I can reach back and see things at seven. Before that it’s kind of all a blur.

I don’t know if my daughter will be the same, but even if she doesn’t remember more about this year of her life than the ones before, I can’t deny how much more grown up she seems. 

I’m excited for her. 

I’m excited for us both. 

I have never been very good at writing here when things are going well. I’m just not quite sure what to say. I’m not the biggest fan of my own posts about how awesome everything is. I either find them kind of boring (or at least not very compelling) or toeing humblebrag (if they aren’t knee deep in it). I don’t do them well; they are not my most interesting posts. 

I have always come to this place to exorcise my demons. But then I got called out on that, more than once, and so I’ve tried to temper pretty much everything I write. I suppose that is growing up. One might even call it perspective.

I read the blogs of a lot of women, extraordinary women, who are wading through incredibly difficult lives. Their problems are real, with a capital P. Their shit is legit. These women have to navigate divorce, marital affairs, chronic illness, resolving IF and loss childfree/less, stillbirth, infant death, children with severe health issues. These are really intense, life-altering issues. These women write eloquently about their situations, putting up posts that teach me what resilience really means, what it looks like in the day to day.

After reading posts like that, I am loathe to come here and write a post about how I can’t find another job, even though I have a fine one that pays the bills, where I’m treated fairly and with respect (at least by my colleagues and direct superiors). I am weary to publish something about my marital issues, or my own personal challenges in parenting my kids, because it all feels so…pedestrian.

Yes, these issues are relateable. Yes people see themselves in my struggles. It’s not that I think there is no place for posts like mine in the world, I just doubt mine are insightful enough to do those universal topics justice. I don’t have a thoughtful lesson to tie it all up with in the end.

What I am learning about myself is that I’m not all the resilient. I mean, I knew that, but it’s humbling to be shown evidence of it over and over again. My thought process tend toward anxiety and depression, I am not someone who bounces back from adversity, stronger than before. Instead I have learned a fraction of the lesson, so that the next time I am slightly better prepared. And yet I keep making the same mistakes. I keep stumbling over the same cracks in the sidewalk, instead of stepping over them the next time I walk down that particular block.

I never managed to get the job stuff out of my head this weekend. It was infuriating, because I really and truly do not think I’m going to get the job. One of the schools that never contacted me for an interview, even though they extended their application deadline indicating they hadn’t found a suitable candidate, finally responded to my confirmation email (because I sent it again). Evidently I am not being considered because they want someone with high school experience. I hadn’t even remembered that not having high school experience was a weakness of mine. I was so focused on not being a native speaker than I forgot my real fault was being a middle school teacher.

They are interviewing five people for the position at my high school. Surely someone has high school experience, or is a native speaker, or both. And yes I know, in the workplace people can hire applicants for any number of reasons, but in education, people generally hire people for a narrow range of skills and experience.

And of course teachers right out of school get hired. It does happen. But high school Spanish positions are not as plentiful, and in California a lot of people speak Spanish.

I mean, if I could move to another state and apply to Spanish positions I’d probably have a lot better chance of finding one than I would here.

Or if I were able to work part time for a year or two, and then be in a position to request a full time position when one opened up. Except I’m not in that position, and I never will be.

So I really and truly do not think I’m going to get this position. And yet I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve tried every strategy I know of, but the thoughts just keep popping back into my head. And even though I know, deep in my heart, that I will be okay next year at my current school, I can’t seem to avoid the stress. In fact, if I start thinking really positively about next year at my school, I start getting stressed that I will be offered the position and won’t know if I should take it!

It’s crazy making!

Sometimes I hate myself so much. I hate the way my brain works. I hate my tendencies to spiral into anxiety and depression. It seems no amount of self-awareness or self-compassion will ever change what actually goes on in my head. I just have to learn to ride out the storms.

And yes, I have gotten better. I my coping skills are more refined, more effective. But I can’t seem to avoid myself, and I suppose I never will have that ability. I am who I am. I need to accept it. To accept me.

I hope as I get older, I chill the fuck out a little.

(I guess I ended up writing that post anyway.)

 

My husband and I had are first big fight in long time. 

I know why it happened. I know what I could have done to prevent it. But I didn’t prevent it, and it happened. 

I should be asleep right now. My husband is and he never get up with the kids; the “night parenting” it mine to manage. 

But I needed something for myself today. Something that is all my own. 

So I’m two cocktails and a second episode into the Handsmaid Tale. 

It’s nice to have some time and mental space to myself. 

Can I tell you how much I don’t want to be applying for this job right now? It really complicates things.

First off, this application requires a few things my past applications have not. Luckily I have copies of all my transcripts to scan, but I’m not sure when last year’s assistant principal will get around to sending me a finalized copy of the third letter of reference that I need. I wrote a draft of a letter Friday night, in the hopes that she could edit and return it by Tuesday. We’ll see. I still haven’t heard from her.

I also spent an hour on Saturday getting pricked for a TB test that will be read on Monday (yay for random urgent care clinics in my neighborhood!). I have an up-to-date TB screening at work, but I don’t want to ask for it because it will look suspicious (and also will probably take them a week to get it to me).

Acquiring and putting together all of this stuff is not easy, especially when I still have to make a review and test for my 6th graders, grade a ton of papers, AND pack my classroom.

As for packing my classroom, I would be doing a totally different job if I knew for sure I wouldn’t be returning next year. Since I’m not sure how this will play out, I’m keeping my own personal resources separated from the school’s resources. I don’t know if I’ll have to repack my own stuff into my own boxes once I know I’ll need to take them with me. That would suck, but I would understand. If I do get the job, I’m hoping they will let me return the boxes at the beginning of the school year, as my old high school (where I am applying) is literally RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from my current school–we hear their bells ringing, and announcements blaring, all day long–so it wouldn’t be hard to return them.

This job is also not as exciting as the one I interviewed for before. The Spanish program at my old high school does not have a stellar reputation. In the past they have been very strict about how, and from what, teachers were allowed to teach. I might be stuck with a textbook if I get the job, and that would not be good. (This was 12 years ago, so it’s possible the department has changed.)

They also don’t have block schedule days, which I was really looking forward to. The other high school district has two block days a week, and our school will be having them next year. I was really looking forward to teaching with block days, and it’s a bummer that opportunity would disappear.

There are some pros to this job. Their pay schedule is higher than ours (but lower than the other high school district I applied to – though they are about to get a raise). They take 10 years of experience, instead of five, which is awesome. Also, they start at 9am, which means I wouldn’t have to negotiate when my prep falls. That is very good news.

I feel like I have to apply, because I have a bit of an “in” there. My leadership teacher remembers me and really wants me to get the job. He promised to put in a good word for me and I plan to visit him Wednesday, when he’ll hopefully introduce me to the instructional vice-principal. At that point I hope to have my application submitted. (They had a minimum day on Friday so I couldn’t visit him then.)

So it’s not necessarily a job I actually want (specifically), and the timing could not be more stressful, but it’s an opportunity to get my foot in the door at a high school that I can’t pass up. Also, the only reason I know about it is because a colleague’s wife works in the district and mentioned the opening to him, and he remembered I was looking around so he passed the news along to me. I haven’t even been checking the job site anymore because posting this late are rare. I’m definitely a sucker for that whole, “maybe it’s fate,” feeling, even though I don’t really believe in fate. I guess I’m more superstitious than I like to admit.

So yeah, this is inserting a whole lot of stress and uncertainty into an already stressful and uncertain time. I also don’t know how well I will weather more rejection. What if, despite my connections, I don’t even get an interview? What if I get the interview but they don’t ultimately hire me? I feel like it will hurt even more when I have to face my leadership teacher with the news that I didn’t get the job.

The last rejection was really hard for me. I was so unimpressed with my performance during the interview; it took weeks for me to stop berating myself for how horribly I did. These feelings were compounded by discovering that a friend had another friend put in a good word for me, which is probably why I got the interview in the first place. To know that I did a shitty job when someone else’s reputation was on the line was more than I could bare. (And to realize I most certainly wouldn’t have gotten the interview without that recommendation had me spiraling back into feelings of general unworthiness).

The other shitty aspect of this situation is that I was starting to feel pretty positive about next year. Yes, not having a classroom is going to suck, and commuting between schools with so little travel time is very stressful, but I really like the classes I have next year. I find myself disparaging my current job to boost my enthusiasm enough to apply, which I absolutely cannot do since I need to feel good about next year if I am ultimately rejected.

Man, I was so ignorant about job searching; I had no idea how much time and self-confidence it required. I didn’t realize that every failure to get an interview would feel like a rejection of me professionally. I didn’t realize that I would worry about asking others to put in a good word for me, for fear of my own failure reflecting poorly on them. The whole process is a total mindfuck. I really, really dislike it.

I do appreciate that I am in a relatively good place about next year. That will soften the probable blow, which I’m assuming will eventually come. The truth is I don’t expect to be offered the job, but feel I can’t ignore the opportunity–I suppose I’m more weary of regret than rejection. I guess that’s a good thing; I’m still standing on the right side of resignation. I don’t know for how many years that will be the case.

I’ve been putting in long hours trying to stay on top of planning and grading in these final weeks of the school year. On Tuesday I found out I have to have my entire classroom packed the day after school ends. At 3pm that afternoon I will hand over my keys. 

I’ve been about two steps away from a total meltdown all week. It hasn’t helped that my kids aren’t sleeping. 

Then today I found out my high school – the one I graduated from almost 20 years ago – has a Spanish position opening. The job post went up on Wednesday. 

To say it put me into a tail spin would be an understatement. My impossible work load just multiplied exponentially. 

Thank god for the three day weekend.