outer-jessie's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- teaching-be-gone I was anxious to get home last night and check my mail. I figured, if they sent out the interview status thingies on Monday, I'll either get it on Thursday or Friday. I could see by the time I got a few houses away that there were no big envelopes in my mailbox, and I was expecting it to be a big envelope. But then I saw that one of the little envelopes had a Teach for America header on it. Aaaaaauugh! I wouldn't allow myself to read it until I had used the bathroom, opened my other mail, and balanced my checkbook. I thought, hm, it's a little small. But it's thick, it's definitely more than one piece of paper. I started joking to myself. What's it going to say? "We regret to inform you that we don't want to ever see you"? "Thank you for applying, but no thank you for applying"? "We're sorry, but you are soooo not our type"? Well, it did. "Thank you for sending in your application materials. We regret to inform you..." Oh no. I figured there was some mistake. I read the whole thing, with one tiny nagging hope that it would say they couldn't fit me in for an interview, but were accepting me anyway. No such luck. First off, I was surprised. I'm a science major, and a rather accomplished one, as far as science majors go. I had a great GPA and have been working in my field for a year. I graduated in two and a half years. I spent a semester in astronomy immersion. But never mind all that, I WAS A SCIENCE MAJOR, and that above all else was supposed to shoe me right in for this. Science majors are supposedly in high demand. But they didn't want me. Beyond the surprise, there came the janitor's giant blue-bristled broom which swept the ground out from under me. I may have been trying to be careful with my hopes, but the truth is, I had been planning on this since long before I applied. I had the next two and a half years planned around it. I had gobs and gobs of expectations, for myself, for my students, for my colleagues, for Rob...it felt just like it did when my wedding was cancelled. Just the same. I'm suddenly floundering in a wide expanse of time, which had up until recently been chock full of so much to do there didn't seem to be enough of it. Now I have nothing to do. That's how I was thinking for about ten minutes while the shock dulled. Then I had to start filling up the space with new plans. I wrote to a Biosphere professor telling her I'm interested in the TA position for next year. I wrote to a recruiting agency, telling them I've reconsidered and I'd like to send them my materials. I wrote to a few schools asking them for information and telling them I'd like to teach for them. I'm a little bit back on track. That half wish, which I've demoted to a one-sixteenth wish, about NOT having applied this year so I could save up money for my wedding, came true. I should be glad of that, and I will be, I promise. I definitely will be. One thing I'm very glad about now, is the cruise. For a while I was thinking that *all* my plans had been blown away, cruise included, but thankfully that's not true. In fact, today I'm going forth to purchase cruise clothes. And a blender :) 1:51 p.m. - 2002-03-08 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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