So Jim gets up and goes to work, usually at around 6 a.m. I wake up at this point, and although there's nothing pressing for me to do on any given day, I find it hard to fall back to sleep. I may stay in bed and guiltfully roll around and feel bad about myself for not having one of those snazzy "jobs" to flit off to for a few minutes before turning on ABCFamily and half-watching an hour of Boy Meets World. Ah...quiet "me" time spent with a late 90's Ben Savage (did he even exist in any other decade?) and the crazy chick with all the hair and lips. Folgers had it all wrong. This really is the best part of waking up.
Shortly after this, I begin my daily job hunt. I start out at K12jobspot.com, searching for all licensed teaching jobs in the state of Michigan. The good news? Tons of new jobs are being posted every day, and many of them are for English teachers. The bad? There really aren't many near me in the Lansing/Eaton county areas. Most of them tend to be in BFE areas that even Jim, whose job it is to know pretty much all the roads in the entire state of Michigan, has never heard of. Apparently the Lansing/Eaton/Gennessee/Clinton/Kent county teachers are pretty cozy in their positions and don't want to step down any time soon. I can't say I blame them.
After the K12jobspot letdown, I scroll through my Bookmark folder which contains links to all non-consortium (meaning "off the grid") districts for which I'd be interested in working. These typically turn up nothing more than postings about subs (seriously, is it even necessary to put up a posting for substitute teachers?) and food handlers and bus drivers and cattle herders and such. Still, this process will take about an hour or so. Maybe something will come up and I'll put together an application packet (this will be the highlight of my day), but most days, I'll wind up with nothing. Dejectedly, I'll pack away job hunt materials for the day, sink into some breakfast, and try and find some "around the house" jobs to keep me busy for the day. Think laundry, cleaning each room to a level that is unnecessary by both Jim's and my standards, and finding excuses to go to Meijer.
Before you go feeling sorry for me (or worse yet, think I'm feeling sorry for myself), it has to be said that I'm only a month and a half out of the teaching internship. They tell you all the time that the majority of teacher job postings don't come until late July or even August, so I'm still hopeful. I just feel that I would enjoy my summer a whole lot more without the added "will I or won't I?" stress of unemployment. I'd love for a crystal ball to give me a glimpse into the coming months and just tell me whether or not I'll have a job. I could eventually learn to handle the magnitude of either possibility; it's less about wanting a certain outcome and more about just knowing what it will be either way.
This would seriously help my mental state on some levels, I believe. I'm at the point that I seethe with envy at the thought of any gainfully employed teacher. I hear some of them gripe about their jobs and just want to remind them that they have one and at one point they did not. Do they not remember the fear/frustration/utter nerve-jangling they felt when they were job hunting? Do they not know how hard those jobs are to come by? Of course, I hate this about myself. Jobs are stressful, and teaching is particularly so. Ranting and griping comes with the territory, and I would hate to think my envy over anyone's employment status would hinder my compassion or harden my shoulder to cry on.
Part of me thinks I'll have the sentence "You wanted this more than anything" engraved on a plaque that I'll keep by my desk for constant reassurance on those days that bring out the job-griper in me. It sure would help to keep things in perspective. At this point, all I can do is anxiously await the day I have a job over which to gripe. In the mean time, I'll continue to hunt, and wonder, and pray. And every so often, I'll allow myself a few minutes of Sabrina, The Teenage Witch on ABCFamily. At 8.
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