T-minus 13 minutes

Well its about 13 minutes to 2006, thus far the evening has been nice. My parents, Ahmie, Liam and I went to a Chinese Buffet tonight. For this night we also made Tong Yun which are flour dumplings with sugar and (my father's favorite) peanut butter fillings, in a simple syrup broth. It was a family affair, Ahmie and my mom made the dumplings and I cooked the dumplings and made the syrup broth.

Still waiting for the ball to drop.
My resolutions for this coming year.
1. Get a better teaching job, time to start looking is in January.
2. Get our fiances in better order. (getting a better job helps)
3. Try to reach my students better (its going to be tough, I think resolutions are supposed to be hard)
4. Lose weight (currently I weigh about 210 lbs)

...5, 4, 3, 2, 1, open sesame, Happy New Year!
Have a Happy New Year! ...

The past 3 months

I have been buried with work and have not been able to post nor compose anything at all. Work has been difficult at the school that I teach at, I hope this break will afford me the opportunity to reflect and refocus before the start of the second semester. When I return from Winter break I will have about two weeks before the start of the next semester. Work has been more anguishing and frustrating than uplifting and enlightening.

A regular work day starts for me goes like this

1. 5:30 am, I get up, eat, get dressed, and out the door ideally by 6:30
   am.
2. But I usually linger, watch some news, or drink a second cup of coffee and
   usually out around 6:45 am.
3. 7:00-7:15 am, I get to work depending on traffic. I sit down turn
   on my laptop and print out my lessons for the day, go to the copier and make
   copies.
4. 7:45 to 12:00 pm, I teach three 80 minute block classes.
5. 12:00 to 12:25 pm is my actual lunch. Usually I am tidying my
   classroom for the next teacher.
6. 12:25 to 1:45 pm is my planning block I try to be productive and spend most of
   that time grading or doing other small teaching tasks. Sometimes
   I just need to sit down and not be productive and relax
   from
   a bad morning of teaching.
7. 1:50 to 3:10 pm is my last block class and is usually my best and most
   productive of the day.
8. 3:10 to 4:00 pm is my planning time which I try to tidy the classroom and
   then try to organize for the next day. Sometimes students come in for
   extra help, sometimes I have students serve detention (which most don't show
   up). Perhaps talk with my coworkers on work related issues.
9. 4:10-4:30 pm is usually when I leave for home.
10. 4:30-5:00 pm is usually when I arrive home.
11. 5:00 to 8:00 pm is unwind time with Ahmie and Liam, depending on if dinner
    is made or not 6-7 is spent cooking something edible.
12. 8:00 to 12:00 pm or later is spent working on grading, writing lesson
    plans or class notes, powerpoint presentations.
13. 5:30 pm wake up.
14. Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Well at least I get the summers off right.

The nature of Love

I find myself thinking about love lately. I hear familiar refrains in my head as I think about this.

Love is a wonderful thing.
Love conquers all.
All you need is love, love is all you need.
Love is a letting go.
Love is all consuming.

What is the state of love in my life. I have to say this is mostly prompted by a letter written to me about a month ago by an old friend. This has prompted me to start getting back in touch with other old friends. In all honesty, I don't make friends easily. I am not the type of person who makes casual aquintances. The friends that I make I keep for life. What I mean by that is friends to me are like books. I have a story of friendship between my friend and I, sometimes we get out of touch and the book goes on a bookshelf. Time and distance does not diminish the stories in a book, nor does it diminish the value of my friendships. All I have to do is pick up my friendships back up, blow the dust off and I pick up where I left off some time ago.

But I digress.

I have been thinking about love lately. I find that I have an almost unbareable love for my son Liam. Not that it is difficult to love my son, but rather the depth of the love that I feel for him is as deep as and wide as the ocean. I know that Liam is a beautiful and very cute child. However my love for him is beyond the physical.
When I come home from work I cannot wait to see Liam, I find it hard to shake out of my work clothes then spend time with him. Half the time I will hold him closely after my arms are free to pick him up and hug him. My love for him is so great that I feel what he feels, my heart fills with joy when he is happy, and laughing. My heart hurts when he has a cry of anguish or pain. I know now that I am a big part of Liam's world. I am his Sun or Moon that revolove around him and help solve his needs.
I know that someday I will not have the sway over him as I do now. It pains me to know that he will grow up someday and not love me as overwhelmingly as he does now.
I know that all things change and that this is a natural part of life which gives life meaning. However this does not mean I will stop loving my son so very full heartedly, enjoying every step especialy now.

Transience Update

Carol called me this weekend and told me that she got a job teaching in Chicago, considering it seems that Carol had to make a major life change to move with her partner Heidi to Chicago. I am glad that she is now teaching and in a good job at a Magnet school. From what she described to me it seems to be a cake job.

Best wishes and good luck on your new teaching job, Carol.

Liam's Kisses

Well Liam has finally learned how to kiss other people with his mouth closed and not biting when kissing other people, or at least to Ahmie and I he has been kissing us or giving his cheek for a kiss. Liam is a very affectionate child but it seems that he has a taste for human flesh. So it is horrible when he plays with other children, or the one time Ahmie and I had left Liam at Church daycare for service Liam climbed on top of another young child and bit him in the cheek and cause the other kid to bleed when the daycare volunteer was not looking. So I almost always take Liam to the daycare area of our church and often miss the service and sermon because our church is currently undergoing major renovation. I have to watch him like a hawk to make sure that he is not patting other children too hard nor will he get the opportunity to bite other children when he tries to hug them.

The frustrating thing about all of this is that Liam is a sweet and affectionate child but he intimidates other children even ones that are older then him by a year or so. This is mostly because he has the tendency to pat hard or bite when he hugs and kisses.

Sorry Carol, I guess when Liam sees you next he won't be a horrible boyfriend to you and bite you in both cheeks when you pick him up.

Transience is a constant

One of my favorite essays was titled Eros and Thanatos (a new refutation of), now this essay was from my senior year Lit magazine Opus. The essay talked of Love and how Love transcends time and is immortal, those not in Love is in a transitory universe going from moment to moment. Yes, seems quite melodramatic. However, parts of the essay is stuck to my mind like really thick peanut butter.

With apologies to Tara Baltazar

In the sixth grade I thought I'd kill myself over a fight with my mother. Today, I can't remember the fight. In this age I am seeing someone. Twenty years from now someone will only be marked by time and place. Nineteen ninety-five, East Village. A photograph may remember.

excerpt from Eros and Thanatos (a new refutation of)

My friends Carol and Heidi are moving to Chicago today and I will miss them. I remember Heidi from one of my first times visiting the Westshore Unitarian universalist Church in Rocky River, Ohio. I did not remember what the sermon was about by I was struck when she came up to the podium and talked about how her partner (Carol) and her lives were set and seemed to be smooth going and then both she and Carol lost their jobs and how frightful this experience was. Heidi ended with a different job as a social worker, and Carol was continued at her teaching job despite being laid off earlier in the summer. I think that Ahmie and I approached Heidi after that service and introduced ourselves.

That was the start of a beautiful friendship. Now Carol and Heidi are all packed up their apartment is mostly empty except for some trash that needs to be tidied. Heidi is going to seminary school in Chicago training to be an Unitarian universalist (UU) minister. Carol is going with her and trying to find work there.

I feel a strong urge to wake up early in the morning an make sure I take a picture of Carol and Heidi before they drive off.

Two Thousand and Five, Lakewood. A photograph may remember.

My Rejection letters

Well I did get the job with both the Summit Academies, and with Hope High School. I ended up taking the job with Hope High because they offered me $31,000 which was less than I had wanted but not as low as the joke of an offer from Summit Academies which was $27,000 with no acknowledgement of my teaching experience.

For prosperity I will attach in this post all the rejection e-mails that I received from my Spring and Summer of applying for teaching jobs.

I'm posting my rejection e-mails in reverse chronological order.

This was the rejection letter from Lakewood Schools for a High School Science Teacher position.

July 5, 2005


Dear Candidate:

Thank you for your interest in the Science Teacher position at Lakewood High School. We were fortunate to have a number of outstanding candidates interview for this position.

After careful consideration, the position have been offered to and accepted by another applicant.

Once again, thank you for your interest.

Sincerely,

JoAnn M. Berkowitz
Director of Personnel

JMB/kr

Here is rejection letter from Lakewood for a Middle School Science teaching position.

July 5, 2005



Dear Candidate:

Thank you for your interest in the Middle School Science Teacher position at Emerson Middle School. We were fortunate to have a number of outstanding candidates interview for this position.

After careful consideration, the position have been offered to and accepted by another applicant.

Once again, thank you for your interest.

Sincerely,

JoAnn M. Berkowitz
Director of Personnel

JMB/kr

This is a letter of rejection from the Lorain County Joint Vocational School for a Science Instructor position, this was dated July 20th.

Thank you for taking the time to apply for the position of Science Instructor. We were impressed with your qualifications and experiences. I must tell you, we have concluded our search for this position and have offered the job to another applicant.

Please keep us in mind when considering employment opportunities in the future. Thanks again for your interest in the Lorain County Joint Vocational School.

Sincerely,
Michael S. Larson
Assistant Superintendent

This is a letter of rejection from Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Schools for a Substitute Teaching Position, this was dated Aug 11th.

Job Posting: Substitute Positions - Daily - for Teachers / Educational Aides / Other Professional Positions
Posting ID: POS20040805000001
Location: Board of Education

This position has been filled. Thank you for applying and please feel free to apply for other positions in the District for which you are properly qualified.

This is another letter of rejection from Lorain County Joint Vocational School for an Alternative Learning Monitor (In-house Suspension Teacher), this was dated Aug 23rd.

Thank you for taking the time to apply for the position of Alternative Learning Monitor. We were impressed with your qualifications and experiences. I must tell you, we have concluded our search for this position and have offered the job to another applicant.

Please keep us in mind when considering employment opportunities in the future. Thanks again for your interest in the Lorain County Joint Vocational School.

Granted I applied for way more than five positions over this past spring and summer. However I believe that the school systems should a least give the meager courtesy of notifying potential applicants about their rejection instead of not communicating at all. I applied for many positions over the Ohio State Department of Education's Online Job database. Basically the schools just log on to the database and pull the applicants that they saw had applied. I cannot imagine that it would be very difficult to pull the names an e-mails of applicants an make a mail merge to send out a mass email of rejection.

Even though the letters of rejection above were generic and canned. I applaud them for having the common courtesy of replying back to me with a rejection letter.

Been holding my breath

Well its been a while since my last post, about eight months I think. Not to say that there has not been very eventful things happening in my life. Much has happened; Liam spoke his first words, walked his first steps, had his first birthday, and endured his first Harry Potter Book release party in these short months.


Don't you love Google Maps? 

To talk about where I live. Now I live in Lakewood Ohio in a nice and quiet neighborhood. We have lived here since May of 2005. We had to move out of the "Murder House" in February because our new neighbors were very abhorrent people who I don't feel like describing right now. They were so bad that we had to move ASAP when they moved in at the end of January. Let just say the fact that they moved in at 1am was the least bad thing we had an issue with. We then moved with the help of our friends Katie, Carol, Heidi, KC, Tim, Andy, and again with a lot of muscle from my brother Marvin. We moved our stuff to a self store, Ahmie's uncle's basement, her mom's storage area, and the bulk of stuff we moved to our friend Jenny and her baby's daddy's house in Cleveland Heights Ohio. This was not too bad we thought but it was tough to live without our own kitchen and on the third floor. It was just plain tough to cramp ourselves into the attic of her house. During our stay March to May my parents visited we were hoping to buy a house but the deal fell through and we decided to look for a place to live in Lakewood, we spent several weekends looking for an duplex before settling for a duplex on the same street as our friends Carol and Heidi. As you may have guessed we are still trying to "settle" into our apartment.

Working has been tough in the past eight months, I lost my QMRP (assistant manager) twice. The first one quit on me, and I said don't let the door slam on your ass on your way out; good riddance. The second QMRP I have her name is Maria Hisey, and I loved working with her she was my brain twin and was a really good QMRP. I believe she started working with me in February. We worked through some tough times but in May she was promoted to being the Manager in charge of the Supported Living division of my company NCC. I could not have been happier that she was promoted to this demanding position because she is very talented and this will suit her personality. But, I was sad and upset that I was finally ready to really work well with her and Susan our nurse as a management team and then she was tapped for this important position in our company. She is thoroughly challenged in her new position and I don't think she has ever met a challenge that she cannot conquer. Every now and then I talk to her and ask how she is doing she does have very much in her hands. She seems tired I hope that she is doing okay with work and her family, granted her children are all older, but it is tough to juggle work and home.

But, I digress.

Since the end of May I have been running Royalton House by myself and have been working very many long and hard hours to make sure things are done. Staffing has been okay but I had certain responsibilities that I could not delegate to others and thus ended up working many weeks for 50-60 hours. Since I did not have a second person at the house I ended up being on-call for over 2 and a half months. I have gotten to the point where I cringe upon hearing the work cell phone ring. All of this has caused much strain in my relationship with Ahmie. I know that I should be better with her. I feel that I am running all the time from home to work, running circles at work, and run back home where I try to take care of Liam and cook and other stuff. But by the end of the day I don't feel like anything. When I wake up in the morning I don't feel like doing anything, I don't want to go to work. Some days I spend at work plunged in deep despair, feeling trapped in this job. Some times I just stare at the walls or mindlessly surfing the web because I don't seem to be motivated to do much more than that. But I manage to do what keeps the house afloat but I did not have energy to expand my presence at work. I now have a third QMRP and his name is Charles Hester and of the 3 QMRPs that I have had Charles by far is more experienced then my other two QMRPs. I hope that he and I will have a good collaborative relationship. Although I hope Charles can tolerate a good surprise.

What about teaching?

Good Question. Cleveland has been a very difficult market for finding work as a teacher. Especially with companies leaving and school levies failing and the state of Ohio not able to properly fund its school districts, makes the Cleveland area a tough teacher market. I have tried since April to apply for various positions for local school districts, they take my applications but don't call back. This is tough for me. I found that being a teacher is my calling and really ingrained into the definition of who I am. It is hard for me to check websites for teaching jobs, applying for them and not get any response, or follow up and find that the position was already filled, but I get the "Check back with us there might be more positions opening up later". I was pretty ready to give up when Ahmie found several ads for teaching positions at local area Charter Schools, and a school for a Juvenile Correctional facility.

The first place I interviewed at was for the teaching position at the Juvenile Correctional Facility. It was an interesting experience walking into jail and having to walk through a metal detector but the job was interesting, but the job was a all year gig for 35,000 which was not so great when you factor the fact that you will teach or be at "school" all year. It required 3 weeks of training in Columbus which would be too much time away from Ahmie and Liam.
The second interview was for a position with Summit Academy for a position in Parma Ohio, which would not be too far of a drive. The school was interesting because Boy Scouting is used as a character development part to its curriculum, but the pay was really bad 27,000 and they did not count my teaching experience outside of their school so forget them.
The third interview was for a position with Hope High which is part of White Hat Management group of EMO's (think HMO for education). This job is in downtown Cleveland they gave me a range of pay between 28-32,000 and I will be teaching in a newly renovated building with new equipment, all of which excites me, and includes some off site training for some of the science teaching equipment which really excites me. The Principle Mr. Longino was very interested in hiring me, but he needed to process my file with his HR department. Unfortunately he did not submit the paperwork until Monday morning and has to wait for HR to finish their background check stuff before a job offer can be made. So I have been waiting for almost a week and I guess I don't have the patience at this time to be cool and calculating about this. I hope I will get the contract on Friday, because school starts on next Thursday.

It has been tough this summer for me, between work stress and the stress of trying to find a teaching job. I feel like a double agent, sneaking away time to work on my portfolio, filling out applications, sneaking time out to talk to schools and interviewing. But this last week I feel like I am barely breathing, holding my breath wishing for some change.