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.
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