So, things are worse and worse in this country, and the levity that is sometimes all we've got and sometimes grossly inappropriate comes and goes.
Today Mike attended a staff meeting and was told that the district will definitely be reducing the number of teachers. First the hiring freeze, then the proposal of a 6% paycut and no step increases, and now the student teachers and the first-year teachers have every right to look terrified. To be terrified.
I started my fifth year of (official, certified, contracted) teaching this week. Supposedly I'm safe. Supposedly. So now I'm too grateful to complain about anything. Somewhere, someone has wheeled around in their chair and muttered, "Mission accomplished."
I don't really want to change our spending habits. Consuming greases the wheels of the modern world. But I can't bring myself to shake out even $98 from the savings account for a round-trip ticket to San Francisco. Sorry, Virgin America, if your airline goes bankrupt because I'm a scaredy-cat.
Especially not after seeing the filing fee for Mike's alien residency followup. $565? Really? And we have to resubmit all of the evidence of our relationship again? Plus evidence from the past two years since he was granted alien resident status? Plus provide affadavits from two people who can attest to our genuinely married life? Does the government not understand that we are two nerdy BFFs who do not socialize with others outside of work or tourists/travel? The host at Tamba could be our best bet for a witness here. I mean, I genuinely love some of my co-workers, wouldn't hesitate to bail them out of jail at 3 a.m., but if they invite me out, I'm going to weigh that against time I could be spending asking Mike to please not leave the dryer door open. The dryer always wins.
(Luckily, all of my offline Vegas friends are co-workers. I've had a few near-misses of enjoyable conversations with strangers almost leading to something else, though. Does everyone but me carry business cards? Even Mike has them, although luckily - for him - he's just as selectively social as I am.)
Seriously, one of the people we're going to ask to write an affadavit is Mike's friend Darren in Australia who has come to visit a few times. We'll beg one of my nice Texas relatives for the other. Mike has met most of my work friends at least once, but for all they know, he's a paid actor.
(Who is being paid to keep the dryer door shut.)
Not enough friends in face-to-face life, and too many online: glibness aside, I've been found on Facebook by a work friend who no longer works where I work. Alas, she keeps in touch on FB with everyone from where I am now. I told her why I wasn't going to accept work friends on Facebook, how it's not the actual work friends that are the problem, but the friends-of-work-friends who are also my co-workers and don't really need to be up in my Flickr/blog/YouTube business. The old "I don't care if you read my blog while passing by, but I'm not going to create a neon sign to my whining or anything else I say that may interfere with my ability to get along with people while at work." (At this point, you may deduce that I'm not known for sharing opinions while at work. Not with everyone, anyway.)
So I'm silly. Real friends should already know that.
Her response was to send me a friend request. Argh. Toni, if you're reading this, you may as well sell that R to Geoffrey the Giraffe, because you're a fiend. The temptation of easy communication (without getting the inkwell and sand out for an email) coupled with the reluctance to aggressively bore curious co-workers? Grrr.
In other networking news, I see that I've finally been added to RateMyTeachers.com. The submitter spelled my last name wrong, didn't give me a first name, and didn't give me a rating, but hey, I've arrived. Through the servant's entrance, yes, but don't think I'm not grateful. Being "too nice/sweet" (to quote a few past students) has possibly finally paid off. I imagine the disgruntled young person, trying to add their rating/review, frustrated not to know my name, and finally saying, "She's horrible, but she probably doesn't realize it, and she's always smiling, so it's really kind of pathetic... bah, let's just forget it for now."
(Yes, I am too nice. I know that. Or I'm delusional. This year I helped the students deduce that I am "friendly, but not actually nice." I'm too pleased with the reasoning that went into this analysis to mind the label. Plus, it's probably true.)
I cannot remember at all what this post was to be about. The economy, and my somber feelings at the moment. How Mike's filing fee is only a little more than our newly calculated tax refund. Uncle Sam giveth and taketh like a revolving door. How things are bad but could be worse.
But also how I didn't finance a McMansion, and how student loans are my only debt, and how I only have that debt because I like having a savings account, and how I'm sooooo glad Mike didn't start taking the classes to become an alternatively certified teacher in Nevada only to be staring down a hiring freeze, and how I hate being made to feel guilty for buying anything when patronizing (some) places is also critical to keeping jobs, and a lot of other stuff that makes me say, "This isn't fair. I played by the rules. Any noises I make should be purely sympathetic."
If certain bailout CEOs are going to get hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars, just on the idea that said CEO worked for a long time toward the expectation of a high level of income, and therefore providing some kind of comparable-if-reduced income is reasonable, then I must protest. Again, many of us played by the rules. We all must accept that life is not fair.
Captains, get off the lifeboats. Women and children are standing by.
Comments