The Waiting Place

Spring Break can't come fast enough for me. Tomorrow and Saturday are packed to the brim. Tomorrow is Jack's class party....and the teacher isn't going to be there. YIKES! Saturday, I teach all day, and I have to finish grading my comp. 2's first essays, plus prepare for Hamlet (okay...the Hamlet thing isn't really work for me.) In fact, it's a joy because I have a captive audience to discuss Shakespeare.....
Still, my fav. thing to do is nothing, and this is just way to busy. My parents are travelling to Beaver's Bend OK. with us on Wed., so I am excited to take the kiddos to a different place and hopefully break our dependence on TV and other media outlets. Really, though, I am wanting and needing a real break, from everything. I want to loll around in bed, eat bon bons, watch Housewives of Orange County or Jersey, schedule a massage and a pedicure, shop shop shop, and that's about it. Okay, wait...that's really my life. (joking of course).


I am trying to find a full time teaching job, and it is really much harder than when I quit 6 years ago, when Jack was a baby. I knew this might happen: I even discussed its possibility with Mike before I quit. I also don't know if it is what God wants for me. I am having a hard time waiting patiently to find what I should be doing. I can't decide if I should go all out, call every single contact I have, or if I should sit quietly and let God do the work. I've seen him work for me in my career. He does it a lot more smoothly than I do. My two last full time jobs were both God things. In Arlington, I went to a meeting to substitute teach when Mike and I moved in the middle of the year, and they made an announcment that "anyone with ESL ceritifaction should come down front to talk about a job." I was the only one that stood up. I was hired in two weeks. The other time, I signed a contract with a 3000 signing bonus at Fort Worth ISD, and two months later was called by the principal at Lamar High...3 minutes from my house, because I had a reading certification and he thought I had graduated from Bowie High in Arlington. The day of the interview, one of his full time English teachers quit, and I was literally hired that day to teach high school English.
I am not expecting a repeat of this experience, so we'll have to wait and see, just like the waiting place Dr. Seuss describes in Oh The Places You'll Go:


"You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.Except when you don'tBecause, sometimes, you won't.I'm sorry to say sobut, sadly, it's trueand Hang-upscan happen to you.You can get all hung upin a prickle-ly perch.And your gang will fly on.You'll be left in a Lurch.You'll come down from the Lurchwith an unpleasant bump.And the chances are, then,that you'll be in a Slump.And when you're in a Slump,you're not in for much fun.Un-slumping yourselfis not easily done.You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?How much can you lose? How much can you win?And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?Or go around back and sneak in from behind?Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind."

It's hard to imagine the places God might take you when it is silent in your house, principal's and other contacts aren't calling you back, yet I know this is a fertile ground for faith. I know this is what many American's are facing, only for me, a job isn't imperative. I just feel ready to be back in a classroom full time. Keep me in your prayers! :) It would be nice to be out of the slump and back with highschoolers, who are both hilarious and infuriating at the same time.