A Work Story
Part of my new position as a counselor for Nathan Hale-Ray Middle School will be implementing a developmental guidance program. One element of this program is going to be teaching a life skills class. The class is on a rotating schedule and starts over every 30 days. Up until now I have been sitting in on the current class waiting for the new rotation where I will take over the class. One of the recent lessons was on gender role in the work world. The discussion was going well with the class except for the self professed Christian in the back of the room who was continually saying that the Bible says that the woman should stay at home and cook and clean while the man works. So we shouldn’t be discussing male/female roles…because the Bible says so. Yikes - not exactly the first introduction to a new school you want to get.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (5)Genetically Engineered Future
I left for work really early this morning and was listening to the NPR Shuffle podcast. Recently, Europe (specifically France) rejected a large shipment of rice because a test of the shipment revealed that there were some genetically engineered grains of rice mixed in with the ordinary grains of rice. The new piece was inquiring how such a thing had happened since the FDA has not yet approved genetically engineered rice, but it has approved soy and some other grains that have been genetically altered. About this point, my mind began to wander to futuristic movies like The Island or the 1982 look at the future, Tron. I began to imagine our future as those movies portray it. All of our food was genetically engineered and agricultural products could all be found in a box ready to eat.
Immediately, I thought of the impact the genetically engineered products would have on my family (ranchers) and how sad I woiuld be to lose that part of my life. I then hatched a scheme for how to get away with growing my own plants and starting an underground gardening world where people could buy non-engineered products. Much like the movies, I would be hunted down if my plan to nourish the world was ever revealed. My dream ended there because the Shuffle mix had a new story for me to listen to. You will have to wait for the movie version to see if I get out alive.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (1)Small Town Driving
Today we went driving on the back roads of Connecticut that many people think are a quick route to my new school. After driving 36 miles, we hit the school. We went winding through places that were beautiful - tons of trees and houses every so often. Never did we reach a place without people, but never did we feel like we were in a town. I think we passed one small grocery store on the road. After driving our short distance for 55 minutes, I felt like my school was in the middle of nowhere and forever away. My attitude until now has been that though the drive is longer than I would like, I can handle the drive.Trying to find a short cut made everything seem farther away. I have now decided I prefer driving faster on the freeway and living in towns with grocery stores.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)Are you sure this is your airline?
We recently returned from our midwest to west tour, but the travels were not as smooth as you would hope. On Tuesday, we showed up at the Madison, Wisconsin airport with an hour and a half to spare. We went to check in electronically and had some difficulty with the machine not being able to find our reservations. We tried a few times and finally asked a real human being for some help. She checked a few things (sidenote - why does it take so much typing for the airline people to look something up or make some changes in the computer. The woman asked our names and after typing for what felt like 15 mnutes she was able to answer our question. Can’t they streamline their system?) and finally told us that we were not on her flight. She thought we should try another airline. She said that sometimes even though you may fly in with United, you may fly out with another carrier. I checked three other places and no one had us scheduled to fly out of Madison.
About this time, Tim realized that we were supposed to fly out of Milwaukee, not Madison - even though we had flown into Madison on a round-trip ticket. Milwaukee is at least and hour and a half from Madison. For a large fee, we could have hoppoed on a Madison flight, but it was free to try to fly stand-by from Milwaukee. So, we took a chance and flew stand-by all the way to Connecticut, which put us in New Haven around 2:30am. It was a long day. No matter what the hassle, it was great to be with family over the holidays.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)Catch-up
Tomorrow, we end our tri-state tour. We hit Wisconsin for five days, Minnesota for 10 hours, and Montana for six days. We have seen many relatives and eaten many homeade delicacies (like Mel’s stew, Khyber Pass’s grilled chicken kabobs, Jenn’s carmel corn, and my mom’s stuffing…which truely makes a visit complete). Holidays always tend to make people eat too much and I am not excluded from that group. I will now enter my “I need to eat healthier” stage.
We have definitely been busy and have enjoyed our break. We love seeing family. Life in New Haven will be a bit different in 2007. On Friday, the 5th of January, I start my new counseling job at Nathan Hale-Ray Middle School. I am going to have to give up or drastically reduce my hours at Starbucks - where I have been working for the last month. I am going to miss that discount. I am looking forward to working in the middle school. The principal is very counseling focused and will be giving me free range to work with the students as I see fit. I will also be doing lots of classroom iguidance lessons, which should be an added challenge and welcome benefit for the students. The school is a smaller school in a beautiful area of Connecticut. The only downfall I see to the position thus far is the 50 minute commute in the mornings. Thankfully, I will not be driving in traffic and should be able to have a stress free drive, hopefully filled with podcasts, downloaded books, and of course music (all thanks to a great Christmas present that will allow both Tim and I to have our music library with us at all times!). The commute may be something we can shorten, so I have to say, things are looking good.
Many of you might not know how many thousands of interviews and applications I went through. I am so glad to be done with that and I am looking forward to my next adventure.
Happy First day of 2007.
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