It is a couple of days before Christmas, and I am home, but not alone this year. This year I have a roommate. It can be really good, but sometimes it can be taxing as well. But that is just the price I pay for having a great place to live.
I know that a lot of you are probably wondering what I am going to do for next year....well as of 6:28 pm on 12-22-06, I HAVE NO IDEA. Really not a one. I have several wants and desires, but nothing seems to fit. If I leave here and go home, I will be starting not from scratch, but WAY in the hole. I have about 11,000-14,000 in student loans. Not that I am trying to get out of paying them, but taking what I have earned as a missionary teacher, and having to get restarted again, is a little scary. Buying a car, finding a place to live, no job. The list can go on and on, and it is very freaky to think to hard about. I have had just about as much as I can take here at ICS. Don't get me wrong there are several things that I love about this school, the fact that I am teaching others about God would be on the top, then there is the students, I really love these students, both from coaching and classrooms. I have a very difficult ninth grade class this year, but as those who have taught before know, you will always have one of those. I love being over seas. Think about it, I am doing something that VERY few of my friends and family will ever get to do. I have a really good friend at another school a little up the road who is leaving and her position is open...the good news being that her boss and I are friends, and he knows me and what I have done with our program here at ICS, the bad news being that I have to wait until after they go to a job fair and see what is there as well, then they'll take all the applications in and then go over them and then they'll take a look at mine. It kind of reminds me of what it was like to get pardon my expression, "screwed over", by both my college and the school district that the college was in the center of. I applied at an unnamed school district having heard the rumor that this school district hired first from Emporia State University, then after having done that, they would look at other applications. Talk about your discrimination, I felt like someone graduating top of their class at one college should be picked over someone finishing middle to low at Emporia State, would have more of a say, but boy was I wrong. I really have an ill feeling in my stomach when it comes to the district that I have had trouble with, and the problem with the college comes from the fact that they said that they would aid in job placement...that's why after I graduated with a education K-12 degree with a 3.6 g.p.a., I worked two day cares, a foster care agency, a concrete pipe manufacturing plant, and building fans, not to mention my moving boxes from one place to another. Not that any of these jobs were bad in and of themselves, but my university, that I paid a high price for, to hear them say they would aid in job placement, do you know how many jobs they even attempted to help with? Not one. I find that funny, since that was one of the reasons I went there in the first place...now get this. I also was told when I was there that if I got a teaching job, that most districts would help or sometimes even pay off my student loan debt. My thinking was Great here is a school that will help me to get the job that will help pay off my student loans. What a bunch of crock. The truth is that only inner city schools might help pay off a very little, if you promise to stay there for a period of time. Now you can tell where I am now, listening to others who really don't know what they are talking about.
Sorry this went off on a tangent. I figure that I had to get some of that off my chest, and since I don't have a huge reading fan base, I could vent to my hearts content. And believe me I have a lot more that I could go on about, but I'll save that for a later post. But I will leave you with a picture that was taken last weekend. Actually I'll clip three on here. One being of me and another being of outside my house. And the last being Kool-Aid discovering her first snowfall. This was last Saturday evening and into Sunday morning. How beautiful snow makes a normally sad a dreary city. Have a great night and a glorious tomorrow, and as a friend of mine always says "Be blessed, and be a blessing"
