I'm Not Going After All

And now I'm going to be homeless by the end of the week. Looks like Lia-Pia and Mama are going to be living in my car after all. My mother is a raging lunatic. She just keeps screaming at me.

I looked at an apartment in West Aurora -- really adorable and if I can make it work, I'll be in there by the 15th.

I am also frantically looking for a job. I need to run my resume out to NIU's Human Resources because they have a lot of what they call "civil service" jobs (like Secretaries and whatnot). If the Lowe's thing falls through, then something like NIU would work. I did talk to Lowe's yesterday. It's promising that I can start maybe in the next week or so.

I have to keep reminding myself that if I get a day job or if Lowe's will work around my classes, I will get at least $6000 for student loans in early September. No need to panic about money, yet (until, of course, I have to think about paying those back).

I Guess I'm Going

The first house made the house in Big Rock look like the Hyatt Regency. Horrific! Can't even describe how bad. Rent was $475 for a place with no fridge, no stove, and that was literally falling apart. It looked like the person who designed it was a raging moron. Really, really, tiny and totally dilapidated.

I got back from Salina at about 7:00 this morning. I haven't had a cigarette since Rochelle. Mom came home from Janelle's (where she's dog sitting) and traded cars. I haven't a clue why, though. All of my stuff is still in her car. She hasn't returned a single phone call during my own trip.

I started crying this morning and I can't stop. I don't want to do this, but I need a damned job. I just keep thinking that I can wait this out for, what, 9 months. And I'll only actually be there for, like, 8 months. Denver is only a 5 hour drive. I can be home in 10 hours.

Kansas is really beautiful -- I mean, it's not the Minnesota/Wisconsin border or anything, but it is rather pretty. I thought it was going to be corn fields like Central Illinois. But not at all. They have huge rolling hills with what are almost like bluffs (only way, way shorter) all the way into and out of the State -- at least from from the East.

I found a little duplex that is owned by one of my coworkers. She is very sweet. Her mother actually owns is but her mother is almost 80 and Jane has PoA over her mother's financial stuff. One of Jane's brothers is also involved and it seems he will do most of the work around the house. I really hope they are going to clean up the back yard, though. It's little and way overgrown -- no real place for Lia-Pia to potty until they take care of that. Once that is cleaned up, there is a fence all along the back and the side of the yard that if I put a 5 foot piece up would be a full fence. I don't think, though, that the yard is maybe about as big as my bedroom in my Mom's house.

1708 Pershing St., Salina, Kansas 67401.

There is a park around the corner that people always walk their dogs in, I guess. Cool. Looks like we will be getting some exercise.

I met my department chair, one of my fellow English teachers, two of the Assistant Principals, and a Special Ed teacher (my landlord). I found a house right my my school. I toured the school and my classroom. I have my own and don't have to share. I get tenure right after my second year. LIKE I'M STAYING THAT LONG!!!!

I have to do this. I really have no choice.

My rent is only $475 a month! Yeah!

Um ...

Yeah. So I got a damned job -- in Salina, Kansas. I have to be there in a fargin' week! I am still teaching summer school through Wednesday. I have to go to Salina this weekend with my Dad to look at a potential rental house. Frankly, if the place isn't a total shit hole (and let us all keep in mind that I lived in that house in Big Rock -- you know, the one where some WCC students shot a horror movie) then I'm borrowing the rent and security deposit from Janelle (I guess she is coming through in a pinch and I shouldn't feel any ill will -- I am truly grateful). The kids start school on the 13th, but I am technically supposed to be there on the 3rd. They are being kind in letting me come on the 6th.

Whew. I got the phone interview on Wednesday morning at 8:00 a.m. and by 9:30 I had accepted the job. The money is good and the living is cheep. It almost sounds like Dire Straits ... but not really.

They have a Target; they are about to get a Starbucks; they have a Barnes and Noble; they have a Sam's club. They have indoor plumbing! Wow. I guess this is a little better than Alaska.

Frustration

You know, I LOVE teaching Hawthorne -- he's just so gorgeous. Maybe it is just me, I know, but ...

I found out today that I am NOT to teach Hawthorne, but I do have to teach Cooper's The Deerslayer. Great. I have never read it and really don't want to. And now not only do I have to read it, I have to teach it. I hate doing stuff the boring way, so I have to read it and then be creative!

Dammit!

I need a real job.

Fire Drill

My students are good little boys and girls (considering that most of them are covered in gang tattoos and are twice my size). Whomever pulled the fire alarm wasn't one of mine. We were busily reading Miller's The Crucible. The kids seem to actually like it. They fight over the parts to read and they laugh at all the right places. They are actually paying attention. So, when we had to drop everything and walk calmly out, they were genuinely ticked off. Go figure.

Honestly, it was probably because they knew they had to get 1/2 way through Act 2 or they couldn't come to the computer lab. It wasn't the play, I guess. Damn.

HoHum

I'm not happy. My dog seems to be happy. I'm not happy. I am not a happy person. I used to have a life and I used to be relatively happy. Now, I'm not.

Would someone please hire me???? I promise to work really, really hard and to be a really good teacher (if I get the chance to teach). See? I'm teaching right now! I have 14 students supposedly blogging their answers to "Is honesty really the best policy?" Earlier, they all wrote me stories that they "created" based on "Paris Street -- Rainy Day" that I put up on the overhead for them.

I love that painting. I feel happy when I see that painting. So I was happy for a few minutes, today.

Only a Nana Story ....

I know it's been a long time. I'm busy teaching summer school and looking for a job. So, only a "Nana" story would bring me out of hibernation.

I am broke. This comes from many years of subsisting on student loans. So, because of an "emergency" situation, I had to borrow money from Nana. I am teaching in the afternoons, so I had to pick her up at EXACTLY 9:00 this morning. We went to the bank. I hate her bank for reasons innumerable and irrefutable.

In her lock box right on top was an envelope with two mature CD's. One was for $18,000 something and the other was for exactly $53,999.02. She rolled the $18,000 something into a new CD and then took $3000 out of the other one. She gave me what I needed out of that and took the rest in cash for the riverboat. Whatever.

She asked me to come back to her house, write out some checks for her to sign, balance her checkbook, and pick up a couple of things she wanted to send home.

The first check was a gift to my parents for their wedding anniversary on the 4th. It's their 43rd anniversary so, as generous as my millionare grandmother can be, she wrote them a check for $43.00 [dripping sarcasm].

Next, she gave me the remote control that goes with the television that she put out on the street over the weekend and that has since "disappeared." She told me to give it to Doug because it could be worth something (the remote, not the broken television). She repeated several times that the remote was a Magnavox. It said "Zenith" on it, but who am I to argue?

Finally, she gave me a Ziplock with an envelope in it. The envelope was stuffed with old, used, empty packets of stool softener. I was to give this envelope to my mother and show her how to cut up these packets so that my mother could use them as emergency dental floss.

I don't know what to say.

I've gotta go. I swear I'll post more for both of my readers later.