Here's how is started....

I guess it all really began when I decided to stay an extra day in Irvine. The plan was origianlly to start driving back up on Tuesday because that was when the rest of the family minus Shiri were going to Colorado. But I ended up deciding to stay one more day and hang out with Shiri (which mostly included watching Start Wars Episode Three and then a lot of bad summer TV). Sometime during the afternoon, I went to go plug my phone in and found that I had a message from a woman at the Garden Grove School District. I called her back and was told that there was a position open at the GGUSD and did I want to come and interview?

I explained that I was on my way back to Idaho but we scheduled me in for an interview at 8:30. Wednesday morning, I packed up my car, including the cello and went to go interview. I met first with one of the HR women who, after what felt like a good interview, wanted to send me over to meet the principal of the school. I drove over to James Irvine Intermediate and met the principal and had what against felt like another good interview. Once leaving JIIS, I literally, got back on the road to head up to Idaho. I arrived in Caldwell Thursday afternoon, spent the evening hanging out with the guys in Boise and then sat down on Friday morning to start working on some thesis revision.

At this point, I'm really torn with what might happen. On the one hand, I really wanted a job. On the other hand, I would be abruptly leaving Idaho, I wouldn't get to sub for my Timberline kids, England would be out of the question.... Plus, there was that whole issue of having to move in about two days maximum and that was overwhelming to me.

But, around noon that day, I got the call from the woman who first interviewed me and was told that I got the job. Overwhelming literally was a understatement. I pushed my thesis aside and got to work. Not only did I have to be down in Irvine on Tuesday, I had to move as much of my things as possible. I started by packing up the things I really needed (to be honest, I didn't even unpack my suitcase... I figured it would save me an hour if I just lived out of it for a few days). This mostly included textbooks, my DVDs and videos, work clothes, the cello, etc. Then, since I still had time on my hands, I packed up most of my books, took everything off my walls, etc. Allie came over on Saturday to help me out and she was wonderful- really great support. I also had to do all the "housekeeping materials"- filing out the apartment paperwork, changing my address, etc. etc. As I said, overwhemling doesn't even begin to cover it.

On Sunday morning, I went to church to say goodbye, played a few special pieces (Amazing Grace, Blessed Assurance and Tis So Sweet- my oldies but goodies) and then took off towards Reno, Joey the cello hanging out in the front seat with me. I arrived in Reno around 6:00 PM, watched some TV and then went to sleep around 8:00. I woke up the next morning at 4:00 AM, getting myself onto the road half an hour later so I could try and avoid labor day traffic. I only stopped twice, once to fill up with gas and once to fill up with smoothies. On the upside, driving over the Sierra Nevadas in the dark was beautiful and I arrived back home at 1:30 having not hit any traffic at all. Whew.

Tuesday morning, bright and early, I arrived for my first staff meeting at Irvine Intermediate. I met some of the staff, including the department chair, Catherine, and then went to get my paperwork done at the district. I had to be fingerprinted, needed a physical that afternoon (which was literally a three hour process which included an eye-exam, urine test, x-rays and a three second conversation with the doctor), filled out a ton of paperwork and in the meantime, had to set up my classroom and start to plan my lessons. I "stole" a lot of stuff that was letfover, including some awesome posters which I started to put up and of course, called my family in for some much needed extra hands in setting up the class room. It wasn't until Wednesday when I received the textbooks and materials but luckily, the other three teachers in the department are really helpful and let me use their syllabus/parent letter and the letter that they wrote up for their textbook.

And then the students showed up. I was ready for them but was definitely still trying to adjust to my new surroundings. Because JIIS is in Garden Grove, it's a different socioeconomic class than Timberline or Woodbridge or most other schools- it's similar to a suburban Wilder. 90% of the students are Hispanic or Vietnamese but so far, I haven't found this a problem. My kids were SILENT the first day, execept for a few. I'm hoping that they'll start to talk more as we get into the material. Thursday and Friday were spent mostly getting to know the kids and doing the usual first day things- passing out textbooks, recapping some lessons learned in seventh grade with the eighth graders, introducing new concepts with the seventh graders, and then, on my part, starting to plan out my upcomings weeks.

So yes, that is how it happened. Never would I have expected that deciding to spend an extra day with my sister would turn into me getting a new job and moving back home. Oh yes, because I am living at home for awhile, which isn't a bad thing. It's letting me save some money, get a chance to start paying my loans back and free food is never a bad thing :). Hopefully you'll come back and check out this blog to continue to read about how things are going for me. Thanks for stopping by!