A Legal Alien

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22 November 2006

I've managed to stop the downward spiral. I think. For now. It's taken a lot of energy, many tears and conversations with friends but I'm getting grip again. It helped that I got a nice evaluation (after a shitty one from last week) because I asked my VP to come in again and watch me. I had a migraine that lasted basically all last week and so on Monday when she showed up, I felt like I was on my game, my kids were participating and I was teaching for 45+ minutes. She had nice things to say and the shitty eval I got last week was shredded up. Which was good for my self-worth because I was starting to wonder if I was hallucinating all those good things people have said about my teaching before. I also stopped worrying about having a nice reference from school because I know I'll always have good references from people OUTSIDE of this district. I don't think I'll get fired or 'not re-elected' as the saying goes but I don't think I want to stay.

I've got to figure out how to get back to London. It's got to be a PhD. The downside? $100,000 to pay for it all. That's a lot of debt and I don't know if I'm willing to do that just yet. There's always the teaching risk but I don't know if I want to even go there again.

Oh.. here's some hysterical news! My school in Essex had another English teacher walk out. She basically had my same schedule from last year but was on a part time pay scale. She worked last year like 3 days a week or something. This year, she was on 4 days a week and had the demon spawn I had. A few weeks ago, she walked out and said 'Not coming back, EVER!' and left. The head told her she'd write her a bad reference for abandoning her position and she said go ahead. SWEET JUSTICE for that place. She was a good teacher too, always helped me and was very friendly. That school is a rotten place to work. Maybe one day the head of English and DEADTOME won't have the best schedules with the nicest kids so they can understand how awful it is to teach kids who call you names to your face and refuse to even sit where you tell them to. I know the issues I had there were because of the school, the system, the bizarre lack of discipline and respect for teachers. The Ofsted inspection clearly laid all that out! At least I still have contact with a few people from there, good friends who supported me in the midst of the worst few months of teaching I've ever had.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and there is much to be thankful for. I have a great family. Really, I'm so blessed because of them. My parents put with my insanity and restore my faith in the goodness of marriage. They drive me nuts sometimes but I could have it so much worse. I have good friends, scattered all over CA and the UK but I am so lucky to know them all, to have them care for me and support me, to listen to me, to laugh with me, to cry with me, to remind me how good it is to know I am loved.

"We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." Romans 5:3-4

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