Bombs Away!

This is a picture of Jamie I stole from Jamie's youth group leader's facebook page. Jamie is jumping off a ledge one story in the air and getting ready to land on a huge inflatable "blob". This "blob" will launch the person on the end of it into the air and out into a lake once Jamie lands on it.  Jamie will then make his way onto the end of the "blob" where he will be launched by the next person in line.

This picture actually mirrors a lot of what I'm feeling/experiencing as I get ready for my first year in my new teaching career.  My schooling has been that long climb up the structure to get to the top of the platform, where I searched diligently for a teaching internship. I finally got one, so now it's my turn to take that jump to the new career. Let me tell you, it's a long fall from up here! But once I take the plunge on my first day, I know my training, the support staff at the school where I'll be teaching and all my many educator family members and friends will be ready to catch me. And by taking my jump, I'll be launching someone else's career to come work in my old profession as a secretary.

Yeah, I know this post was pretty hokey. Originally, I was just going to post this pic of Jamie at camp. But the more I looked at it, the more I drew parallels to my career change.

Incidentally, with Jamie away at camp, the house has been waaaaaay too quiet. I'm so glad I get to go pick him up tomorrow. I miss the little (well, relatively speaking) booger so much!

Changes and Adjustments

I'm going to apologize in advance because some of this post is whining, while some is humor and some is all out excitement. Please forgive the emotional roller coaster you are about to read. Jamie is at camp this week (thank you, Jesus, for scholarships and wonderful youth group leaders!), so I'm just that much more emotional due to missing him.

I am very excited about my new job - but I'm also kind of nervous, scared, anxious, etc. This new position will mean a lot of adjustments for me, both big and small.  Also, it doesn't help that I still don't know what grade level I'll be teaching. And the fact that they are requiring me to take the PPR exam before the school year starts and there's only one Saturday exam available at the end of July, which means if I don't pass it I won't have another opportunity to take it before school starts (which means potentially they'll revoke my contract) and that I don't have the $120 registration fee for the test anyway (at least, not if I want to buy groceries and put gas in my car).

And then there's the $59 I need to pay for the fingerprinting and background check plus the $50-some odd dollars I'll need to pay for my probationary certification. All before I can start teaching. Which means I don't have it to spare. And we won't even get into how much I despise the fact that my life's focus has been on money so much for the last few years. Every thought, every deed, every action I take centers around the thought "But how much will it cost, and do I have enough money to cover that?" This job would certainly help with that. I'll make a couple of hundred bucks more a month than I do currently. Which would certainly make life a little easier for us because it would almost cover how much back child support I'm not receiving because they can't find the jerk. But that's another blog post. But, in order to breathe a little easier and get that extra money a month, I need to pony up cash I don't have. It is such a vicious cycle.

On a funny note, I read the staff handbook last night. 90% of what I currently wear to work as a secretary in a pretty casual office is not suitable for my new position. No sandals or open toed shoes (dude, once the temperatures reach about 80 degrees in March through about the middle of October, all I wear is sandals and open toe shoes!). No capri pants (again, those are just about all I wear because it's so durn hot!). No heels. No jeans.  This of course means I'll either have to wear long pants (too durn hot!) or skirts. I am not a skirt person, most of the time. However, I was able a week or so ago to get a bunch of nice things for the new job. Most of them were skirts. So I've been freaking everyone out at work by wearing skirts several times a week. I figure I better get used to them.

Speaking of getting used to things. I'll have to be at work each morning at 7:30 a.m. (ugh!). I am NOT a morning person. It takes around 12 minutes to get to the school. This means I need to leave the house at 7:15. Jamie's bus does not come until 7:45-ish. The school at which I will be teaching is in the opposite direction of Jamie's school. Jamie is going to have to wait for the bus at his friend's house to make sure he gets to the bus stop in time to catch it. I'm shuddering at the thought of how early I'll have to get up to get ready for school in time.

Another thing I'll have to get used to is not treating all the kids like they are my own, as I do with Jamie's friends. I can't tease and rib these kids like I would Jamie and his friends. Of course, I don't mean teasing in a bad way. But I will need to monitor myself a little more. I hardly think the parents would appreciate it if I stopped in the middle of what I was saying, sang out "Punch buggy!" and tapped the student closest to me. I don't really think that would be professional behavior, do you?

Well, I guess I'm done. I just wanted to let you all know how things are going. I'm kind of a nervous wreck, but I'm glad I'll have almost two whole weeks of training before school starts to help me become accustomed to the way things are done at my new school. I'll also be assigned a mentor teacher to help me with lesson planning, learning the best ways to manage the classroom, grading scales, and all those other things you hear about in school but can't really practice until you are in your own classroom. For everyone who sent up prayers, positive thoughts, good energy or whatever to help me get this position, I thank you very much from the bottom of my heart!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I'm teaching a fourth grade reading class as part of my interview process for a teaching job at unnamed charter school. It would be an understatement to say I'm extremely nervous. I'm thinking of doing a lesson on poetry/reading comprehension, which will involve group work, some question and answer time, taking apart a famous "poem" (a currently popular song that most of the kids should know), taking apart a not-so-famous (to them) poem, and writing a classroom "text message poem" on a centralized theme. I am SOOOOO nervous. Both because this is the first time I've formally taught in a school classroom, and because so much is riding on my performance tomorrow.

Please think of me tomorrow. Pray, if you are so inclined, or send positive thoughts, or good kharma, whatever you feel like doing. Whatever it is, I'll appreciate it! I'll be in a class from 1:00 - 1:30 Central Time.

Tomorrow I Be 32

Having reached the age of 32 (well, one day away, anyway), I can't help but think, "Wait. This is 32? Shouldn't I feel older, wiser, and at least partially like a grown up?" The only difference between the way I feel in my 30's to the way I felt in my late teens and at 20 is that now, in addition to worrying about bills, food, my job, the economy, etc., I now have the worry of "how the heck am I going to support my kid?" Shouldn't someone in her 30's feel a bit more, I don't know, settled, by now?

I feel like everyone else my age has gotten their crap together by now. They know who they are, what they want to be, most have found a partner in life and have at least some sort of plan for their lives. Me? Well, if I make it successfully through one day without breaking down crying and get half the things done on that particular day that need to be done, well - that's success for me. I kind of feel like Dorothy in the tornado. There's nothing sturdy to hold on to, I don't know where I'm being blown to, and I certainly don't know what's going to happen next. I feel like everything is out of my control.

Part of this is because I've had a totally craptastic couple of weeks down here. Let me give you a recap:

• Last week, instead of getting the raise I was really hoping for and desperately needing, I was instead told that I'm on probation and I'll find out in January if I still have a job.
• I found out my request for an appeal with Jamie's insurance has been denied; which means that starting next month, I have a 923% increase in the copay amounts I have to pay for Jamie's doctor visits and medicines. What was once costing me less than $20 a month will now cost me a little over $200. That's money I don't have, folks.
• I came to the realization that - between soon-to-be-higher medical costs for Jamie and my own bills, there probably won't be any presents at Christmas this year. I know that Christmas isn't about presents, it's about Jesus, and family, and love. But - oh - how it hurts to know I can't give Jamie what he wants this year!
• My roommate informed me she's going back on her agreement with me to share bills and split rent until we're out of school and will be moving out when the lease is up at the end of January. She's going back on her word because she's more broke than I am, which a part of me can understand. However, this puts me in a major bind because -
• I've discovered it may be next to impossible for me to find a place for me and Jamie to live on my income alone. Due to the credit crisis and economic woes, all the rental agencies around here have restructured their income requirements for being able to rent a house. They now require you to have an income at least 4x that of the monthly rent. Even though I'll have school money at the beginning of January to use for a deposit, first month's rent, etc., the rental agencies don't count that as income, so I'm hard pressed to find a place that will even let me rent, much less finding one in a good neighborhood, in good repair, etc.
• Due to the above, and wondering if we'll have enough $$ just to rent a house, I had to break Jamie's heart and tell him we couldn't go back to NYC on spring break to see Uncle Joel like we had been planning on since last November. Jamie really loves Uncle Joel, and was eagerly anticipating seeing him again. But with our finances up in the air so much right now, I just don't see how that trip is going to be possible.
• Dad's being a butt, calling me and harassing me about not coming to see him often enough, then hanging up on me when I answer his questions in ways he doesn't like, and
• I'm failing my Spanish class. I'm so tired, and stressed, and freaking out over everything that I can't concentrate on all my classes. The Spanish is the hardest one for me to absorb, so it's the one that falls out of my head first. I think I'm doing fine, then I go to take the test and bomb. I got a 62 on the first test, and a 55 on the second. It will be a miracle if I can raise the grade up to a C at this point, much less straight A's like I usually have.

However, I keep reminding myself that things are not as bad as they could be. We have a roof over our heads for now. There's still food in the pantry. Although it's uncertain if I'll still have a job in the future, I do still have one for now. Those who have read my last few entries know that God is good, and Tiffany rocks, so Jamie still gets to go on his field trip. In fact, this weekend he's excited about getting to go pick out "yummy never-touched-a-peanut-in-it's-life food" and packing his bags for the trip. Things could be much worse. It's just that, I don't know, I thought that I would have gotten to a point where life was easier by now - I'd know where I was going and how to get there, I wouldn't still be trying to juggle so many balls in the air. Heck, I never expected I'd still be single at this point in my life, either. I guess I took it for granted that I'd have a partner in life by now. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm learning that there really isn't any difference between how you feel in your 30's from how you felt in your teens. And there's no "magic age" when you finally grow up. And just because you have a kid(s), it doesn't mean all of a sudden you have the answers. I think mostly it means you just have more questions.

So, sorry for being such a downer today, folks. I just needed to unload some of this stress, anxiety and what-have-you while ruminating on the status of my "adulthood." I'm not meaning to whine or have a pity party, I just felt like if I didn't get some of it out of my head and down on paper - wait, um... on the computer screen, my head would explode, or at the very least I'd start consuming copious amounts of alcohol. If I ever get it figured out, I'll let you all know. Peace, love, hugs and kisses to you all!

Physical, Emotional and Mental Fatigue

So, I haven't posted anything significant in quite a while. We're kind of going through a rough patch right now. For several weeks now, I've been in this physical, mental and emotional funk - I'm so tired it's all I can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But I'm not just physically tired; everything about me is tired. My brain is sluggish, my soul even feels sluggish. It's like my entire being is enveloped in a fog. I can't concentrate at work, can't concentrate on school work and deadlines - all I want to do is sleep. But, when I try to sleep, my brain is spinning so fast about so many different things that I can't sleep either. It's become a really vicious cycle. And, of course, the more tired I am, the more distractable I am, which means the less work I get done when I need to do it. Like I said, vicious cycle.

I have put a big priority, though, on concentrating on Jamie and making sure that he knows that he's Mommy's number 1 priority. I don't want him to feel like Momma isn't paying attention to him. I don't ever want him to feel like he isn't important to me. I don't want him to feel like Mom was there physically, but not mentally, for him. I remember what that feels like, and it's no fun. Another reason why I'm trying to show him how important he is, is that he's having trouble at school again. He's gone back to emotional outbursts at school, and saying things that quite frankly freak me out. And sometimes, I have to wonder, how do you tell the difference between "make-believe" play, or something else? Then I feel guilty for wondering what I'm wondering, which makes me even more emotionally, physically and mentally tired... Get my drift?

Anyway, I don't mean to dump a bunch of stuff on you guys (my loyal readers), but I just needed to get some thoughts out of my head and down on paper. I guess I feel a little like my blog is my own personal pensieve. If the thoughts are down on "paper" (of a sort), I guess my head feels a little less crowded.

Happy Tuesday to you all.

Two-Year Anniversary and a Raise!

Yesterday was my two year anniversary with the company I work for. Doesn't seem like two years could have passed already, but they have. Anyway, we couldn't do my year-end review yesterday as we had too many projects up in the air (including one which has entailed me fighting with the FDA over certification of medical instruments, but I won't go into that giant headache). So, my review was today.

Out of that meeting, I got:

• a raise (yay)
• a pat on the back for the job I've been doing (double-yay)
• a promise to start reviewing me for raises more often than just 1x a year (triple-yay)
• recognition of my talents and smarts (quadruple-yay); and
• an admonishment that my desk is starting to look cluttered and messy and I need to do a better job of keeping it looking nice for when clients walk in.

Okay, so the last one wasn't so good; but hey, if that's the worst thing somebody can say about me, that I'm messy, I'll take it and run!

Out of that meeting also came a setting of a deadline for me to complete the webpage (before the end of 2007) and a promise that there will be set days allocated for my boss' wife to come in and do my normal duties for me while I work on nothing but the webpage. We also set a project deadline for me to complete gathering information and prepare a comparison report between communication companies (we aren't very happy with our current phone/ISP company). This too is contingent upon me having help in the office, as I pointed out (politely, of course) that I am only one person. Last but not least, I was given permission to order a better, more comfortable office chair, as the one I currently use kills my back.

All in all, today was a pretty good day!

HP5 Tickets - at the IMAX!

Woo hoo! My boss and his wife rock! Today, as a belated administrative assistant's day present, I was given 2 advanced tickets for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: The IMAX Experience. The last 30 minutes of the IMAX version are in 3D! Woo hoo! Now that's a cool present! So now I get to count down the days until July 13 (the night I chose to take Jamie to the movies). Since the IMAX lines are so long, we're going to head over there as soon as I get off work and walk Ziggy. Sure, we'll be sitting in line for about 1.5 hours, but it will be worth it to get good seats. Plus, the theatre sells pizzas and junk food, so we'll just eat a pizza for supper while we're waiting in line. But we definitely want to get there early enough to get good seats. When we saw Spiderman 3 at the IMAX, we got crummy seats way up front and you couldn't really tell what was going on because the screen was just too huge to take it all in at once. I'm totally stoked about seeing HP5!

This will be the summer of Harry, as the new book will be out the following week! Yippee!

I Got New Toys!

Things have been FUN at work here lately. I've been designing the company website! Whee! Right now, we just have something up I threw together to give people contact info and notify them that the website is under construction. This is major for around here, because apparently they've had a registered domain name and a website for FIVE YEARS and never put anything up until I started pushing about it two years ago! Finally, the boss' wife told me to go ahead and just do it, then my boss could see it later. She got tired of him waiting around on giving the go ahead on it, too. It doesn't look nearly like what I want it to yet, but you can look at it here to see where I work and what I did to it so far.

Also, I got new toys today! I got a digitizer, stylus and wireless mouse to help with all the photoillustrations I have to do here. The boss' wife told me to go ahead and order whatever I need because she watched me waste 45 minutes one day trying to use my mouse to draw the line I needed on a scanned photomicrograph.

I LOVE NEW TOYS! Wooooo Hooooooooooooooo!

And for those of you wondering about Jamie, he's doing better. He's wearing an ace bandage until we can see the orthopaedist next Wednesday. I'll keep you all informed of what's going on.

3-3-1

That's Jamie's soccer team's record right now - three wins, three losses, one tie. His last game is this Saturday, an event he is looking forward to yet dreading at the same time. He's excited because it's a game to play; he's dreading it because it's the last of the season. I'm going to try to scrounge up the funds for him to attend three soccer camps this summer - one basic skills camp, one advanced skills and ballhandling camp, and one goalkeeper's camp. He's really excited at the prospect of attending these three camps. The kid eats, breathes and lives soccer. He's a phenomenal goalie - but his stamina when he's out actually running around on the field needs work. Hopefully, the camps will help in myriad ways.

In my school news, I took a final last night for sociology and got an A. That means my final grade for the semester in this class is also an A. I'm fairly certain I have an A in my criminal law class, as well. So far, I have an A in Earth Science, but I won't know my final grade until I take the final exam next week. I have a D in math right now (ugh!), only because my teacher dropped my abysmally low exam 2 grade (25/100!). I have to bust my butt trying to get at least an 80 on the final exam (please, Lord, help me figure this math out!) in order to get a final grade of C. If I do manage to squeak out a C, I'll be allowed to take the math class I need for my major. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate math?

As for Jamie's school, he's only got about 3 weeks left. Right now, he has A's and B's in everything except social studies. He has a D in that one. I told him I except (read: demand) that it be much higher when report cards come out! Other than that, things are going really well for him. He's not getting in trouble very often, is polite and attentive in class, and is slowly starting to learn to control his emotions when he gets upset with his peers at school. I'm very proud of my boy!

Now that the end of my collegiate career is within sight, I'm wondering how I can put a BGS degree to good use. I know I want to go to grad school, but when? Where? Where do I want to go from here? Where am I wanted/needed? Where does God want me to go and what does He want me to do? Where is best for Jamie to be? These are questions for which I do not have the answers.

At work, things are going okay. This is the last week for R.T. to be here, supposedly. I got tickled yesterday because we had a "going away" luncheon for him. He had the nerve to send out an email request to everyone telling us what he wanted as a going away present! Can you image the gall? Then at lunch, he said he almost bought us all presents to show how much he appreciated us, then decided he wasn't going to. My main boss piped up and said "That's okay, the fact that you're leaving is present enough!" I about choked on my lunch I was laughing so hard!

Guess I better get back to work now. I'm going to try to leave the office early today so I can go on an office supply run. It's been so long since I've had time to go that we're dreadfully low on many things!

Long Work Hours, Soccer Game, Time Warp Trio, Tooth Fairy

I'm not a happy camper, folks. The past four work days I've come in to work anywhere between 7:15 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. (regular work day starts at 8:30 a.m.). There have been way too many reports to do, plus payroll, plus last minute "urgent" demands that have required me dropping everything else and starting on that. Then I have to try to remember where I was and what I was doing in said reports before I was interrupted. Plus, I had payroll to do last week. SOMEBODY who shall remain nameless (but has an annoying rat-tail) decided to wait to come in until noon on Thursday and announce that he'd be out of town on Friday. Then he dumped about 5 last-minute invoices on me to do that day before he left around 4:30(!!!). This was on top of everyone else's reports and invoices I already had to do. And if that wasn't enough, he then gave me 18 chemical analysis test results to type into a report. Sheesh! I know y'all are very tired of hearing me gripe about my job. I'm sorry. I have to vent somewhere so I don't explode. See, I feel better now.

Anyway, moving on to this weekend's soccer game. Jamie played goalie for the majority of the game, and he was smokin' hot! He blocked 10 goals from going in! 10! Unfortunately, we lost 2-0, but the referee came up to us afterward and complimented our team. The kids we were playing were HUGE (like, one looked like he should be playing tackle football, not soccer!) and the kids were 10 and 11 years old. Jamie is one of the oldest kids on our team at 9, the rest are 7 and 8 year olds! The ref said he'd refereed that team before, and they usually trounce their competition by 10 points or more. He was very impressed that the game wasn't more one-sided than it was. Then he told Jamie that he did a "fantastic" job! Jamie was so happy he was beaming. Then one of the parents from the other team came up and complimented our team on how fast they were, and (again) Jamie got complimented on his goalie skills. There were times he was the only defense we had, and he rocked!

Tooz sent Jamie a Time Warp Trio t-shirt recently. Just to let you know how much he loves it, Tooz, he had to wear it to school Friday (even though I hadn't washed it yet), then he wore it to church on Sunday (I had washed it that time), and wanted to wear it to school today. Obviously, he loves his shirt!

And, while at church yesterday, Jamie was eating a Tootsie Roll and got a surprise. One of his baby molars came out when it stuck to the candy. We didn't even know it was loose. So, Jamie got to put it under his pillow last night for the Toothy Fairy. Jamie's friend Josh went to church with us yesterday, and I had to threaten him with bodily harm, though. When Jamie said something about putting it under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy, Josh piped up with "Aw, you still believe in that?" Luckily, Jamie at just that moment ran off to show his Sunday School teacher and didn't hear, so I bopped Josh (lightly) on the head and reminded him that Jamie is a little younger than he is, and that it isn't nice to infringe on the fantasies of others. Then I whispered in his ear that if he told Jamie the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny wasn't real, I would "whoop his butt." Josh and I have had to have private discussions before about respecting other people's rules and beliefs. I've also had to kindly remind him that if he cannot follow my rules at my house, he can go home. Overall he's a decent enough kid, just very exhuberant.

Anyway, that's my recap. Better get back to work now so I can go home at a decent time today and not have to come in early tomorrow.

Now I'm REALLY in Trouble

But this time it isn't with school work. I FUBAR'ed big time at work, and this was just discovered today. I think I came very close to being fired today. And that stinks, people.

Apparently, I had way too many balls in the air while juggling tasks. Well, I must have dropped one of them and had it go splat! while I wasn't looking.

My company does all sorts of complicated testing for our clients. Many of our clients are law firms involved in product-malfunction cases (both defense and plaintiff) worth - in some cases - millions of dollars. Some of our testing is done by outside laboratories.

I sent a very important, irreplaceable sample to the wrong laboratory. I had too many tasks going at once, and when I got interrupted to do another task, I got my addresses mixed up. Like I said, I FUBAR'ed. If the sample had not been found and forwarded to the correct lab, I would now be out of a job. My boss was so mad he couldn't even speak to me. Well, actually, he yelled a lot, but when he tried to talk to me, he was so mad he started stuttering. That, folks, means he was severely P.O.'ed.

I have a feeling that I'll have some sort of disciplinary action taken against me. I wouldn't blame him. This was a serious snafu that could have caused us to lose our national reputation, millions of dollars in billings over the years, etc. I'll take any punishment they want to give (just please don't fire me.)

I am no longer going to bring homework to work with me. I am going to concentrate more on my work. I am definitely going to make sure this NEVER happens again! (And at night, I’ll concentrate harder on my homework so I can hurry up and complete my degree.)