Day 24

At handbell rehearsal tonight, I mentioned that a place I'd interviewed with was flying me out to meet them. One of the other members said, 'Oh, I'll keep my fingers crossed. That happened to me a bunch of times; people flew me out and then they ended up hiring internally.' Uh... great? So I'm a bit less hopeful now, which is maybe a good thing, so I won't get as disappointed if it doesn't work out.

... oh, who am I kidding; I'll be really bummed. Fingers still crossed.

Safe Thanksgiving travels, everyone! I still have to pack..

Day 19

More reasons to love 'Community':

• Naming the bio lab rat Fievel -- I laughed so hard at this!
• Joel McHale = awesome
  
• 'Offer them a sandwich.'
• Greene Daye
• Troy jumping onto the lab counter, screaming and petrified

In real-world news: The people with whom I most recently interviewed want to fly me out there! Looks like it'll be a really long day trip, but at least it's a non-stop flight. Renting a car and driving myself around an unfamiliar place, on the other hand, is not looking too appealing..

Day 18

I am currently working on this job application, and it's pretty intensive; it requires a cover letter and resume, three reference letters, transcripts, contact info for references, and 'documentation of superior teaching ability'. Not quite sure what that last one means, but it's optional anyway, so I'm hoping those references will speak for me. Anyway, I've been hammering away at this cover letter for a few days now, and I just don't want to work on it any more. Which is a shame, because it's not quite finished yet... still needs editing. I will (probably) get it done by tomorrow, because that's when the deadline is, but it's killing me right now. Just thought I'd share that with you all.

On a lighter note, did you ever wish you could turn your handwriting into a computer font? You can! It's actually really cool; I've managed to download my own font, but having a bit of trouble getting Word to recognize it.. planning to acquire Open Office so maybe that'll work. But a font made of your handwriting, how cool is that? Especially for you people who have cooler handwriting than I do. (read: not teacher handwriting)

Day 13

Segueing a bit from yesterday's 'Glee' post.. Wednesday's particular episode also reminded me of a reason why I want to live in the US, rather than Germany or elsewhere: American schools try exceptionally hard to mainstream kids with disabilities. I'm sure viewers the other night didn't think twice about seeing a student with Down syndrome or a kid in a wheelchair. But in Germany, special ed students are completely segregated from their peers at an early age. Since kids are funneled into schools on different tracks (college prep, technical school, etc.) starting in fifth grade, I'd say segregation definitely is set by then, if not before. I mean, they have entire special ed schools so that these students aren't in the classrooms with their peers. During my two years working at college prep schools, I didn't even encounter anyone in a wheelchair, let alone students with other disabilities. The homogeneousness (?) was a bit frightening, actually. Americans may have other faults, but our treatment of kids with disabilities reflects our respect for all students and our commitment to treating people equally. If you don't teach that by example starting in elementary school, where do you expect kids to learn it?

In other news: Happy Friday the 13th! Don't walk under a ladder, cross a black cat's path, or break a mirror. Or perhaps do those things in pairs so they cancel each other out.

Addendum 2: I had a job interview today. It went pretty well, I think, though you can never tell with these things. The position is not specifically my interests but is in my field. The pay is pretty low, but some salary is better than no salary, I suppose!

Addendum 3: I am in love with NBC's Thursday night lineup. Expect a post on 'Community' sometime soon, it is brilliant.

Day 9

Twenty years ago today, the Berlin Wall came down. And I was hoping to write a nice reflective post on how my experiences abroad would have been completely different if the wall were still standing today. Maybe I wouldn't even have traveled to Germany at all, actually. But instead, I have spent far too much time today staring at a computer screen, writing a brand-new cover letter from scratch, which I believe is one of the nine circles of hell. (Check with Dante if you want to be sure.) And so I am rather phoning it in. Perhaps I'll be a bit more reflective tomorrow, but you never know around here.

Sidenote: What the hell is up with this weather?

Happy birthday to meeee

My birthday horoscope:

"For those of us born on June 9:

Your desire to learn new things and explore beyond the reaches of your immediate environment is strong this year, as you strike out in search of adventure. August brings you opportunities to travel and interact with a new group of people. Though you may feel hesitant at first, by the fall, you will find your confidence growing in leaps and bounds. Try to remember to be observant and ask questions, as you take on the role of a student. By November, you may have an opportunity to share some of what you are learning with others. At the end of the year, love is in the air, as your courage to reach out and connect to others grows by leaps and bounds."

Sounds pretty good to me! Also, when am I ever NOT a student?

In other news: Interview lined up in Boston! Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to get there, where I'm going to stay, how I'm going to get around and how I'll get back. That's all.

Also: I'm possibly going back to London this summer! Updates to follow.

Still alive

Back by popular demand because I remembered that I have a blog. And it's looking pretty sad and neglected. I may end up shutting this down because I spend inordinate amounts of time on Facebook and have not a whole lot to report. Yet, if something does happen (i.e., I move somewhere awesome and exciting), I'll probably keep it up. So basically I'm indecisive, surprise, surprise.

Speaking of moving somewhere awesome and exciting, a number of applications are currently under review, for jobs in places like Chicago, Boston, Baltimore and places abroad... that's right, I'm looking at spending another year abroad. It's addictive, really. Also, it's not here, so win-win. There's this program that sends folks with Master's degrees in TESOL/applied linguistics (check!) abroad to teach English for a year, and it sounds pretty amazing. Working on one of the projects they have listed would be a pretty big shock, I think; the countries are all underdeveloped (well, that is the point of the program) and some are more anti-American than others, but what an experience that would be. I'm sometimes rather hesitant and not entirely thrilled about schlepping stuff overseas again, but overall it seems genuinely worthwhile. At any rate, we'll see if I make it past the interview stage.

In other news.. Have you ever friended someone on Facebook and then sort of regretted it? I recently found a high school friend and was pretty psyched to get back in contact with her... and then I remembered that I had the feeling that it wasn't entirely an equitable friendship. Looking at her profile has sort of brought back memories of not only that, but of how non-awesome I was in high school. I mean, I'm pretty geeky, but now I revel in my geekiness. (Sort of.) Then, I was also very nerdy, but also insecure and inadequate and sort of wanted to change, but didn't know how to go about it. I guess friending this girl brings me back to those days; although I thought they were far in the past and I'd moved beyond that, here come all those high school memories flooding back.

Lastly, I'm starting to wonder if I've missed the marriage/baby train. Or if there's something in the water. Seriously, what's going on with everyone?

Shhhhhhhhhhhoot.

Well, it looks like I've failed at the blopomo... I suppose I could go back and post-date some posts (ha!), but that seems rather silly. Oh well. I'll try and post more regularly, anyway.

Not much to report here; some interest in my resume, though, so I'll follow that up and see how it goes!

It's a small world, after all

So I applied for (yet another) job in the Boston area yesterday and heard back from the HR guy this afternoon. He said they weren't hiring for positions in that department, but they will be soon. Not the greatest news, but more hopeful than a lot of messages I've gotten.

And THEN he writes, "By the way, I went to [another high school in my district], just FYI."

How crazy! What a small world... So I wrote back, conveyed my amusement and the fact that my orchestra used to rehearse at his school, and he replied again(!).

So now I've got a connection with an HR person at this place where I'd like to work. That's more progress than I've made in the past two months! And all because of where I went to high school...