Friday Follies and Gossip

Today was field day at the kids' school, and I went in to help out in Josie's class. They really didn't need help, as it turned out, so I just kind of tagged along and hung out with them until lunchtime. It was fun to watch the kids, although the boys have reached that uber-competitive stage where they don't want to let the girls do anything, which caused some tears on the girls' side a few times. The got to do a lot of different things, like kickball, baseball, sponge-tag (where they threw wet sponges at each other, a wonderful feeling on a 90-degree day). It was also a good time to talk to the morning teacher, who I rarely see.

I found out that Ms. Miller, the old teacher for the class, will not be rehired next year, and is planning on moving out of state. Good luck to her on finding another job after being fired, especially since I'm pretty sure she was relocated on purpose from her other school across town to this one. It turns out that the morning teacher, Ms. G, will be taking that position full-time next year, and she told me that when I get my paperwork for being a substitute to give her my phone number, and she'll call me whenever she's planning on being out. That made me feel really good, and I still smile whenever I think about it. In my last profession, contract administrator for a government contractor, there was almost *no* encouragement. It was an all-women department, headed by an over-ambitious woman who was the youngest department manager in the company, and it was pretty much all backstabbing, all the time. Whenever you did something well, you could always expect to have someone cut you down soon after, or more often, someone in a slightly higher position to take credit for it, and I spent a lot of time feeling angry and depressed. The potential of having a job in a place where maybe that doesn't happen, at least not all the time, is almost overwhelmingly joyous to me. Having three people that actually work there tell me that they think I'll do great, and one even offer to make sure I get a foot in the door, is more encouragement than I got in my entire professional life until now. That makes me think, maybe it wasn't just *me* all those years - maybe it really *was* the competitive environment that totally sucked. We were always pitted against each other, always having to justify our jobs, all the departments were always crapping on one another... ugh. There would be no amount of money in the WORLD that would make me go back to that.

OK, OK, I know... time get off the computer. It never fails - the minute I sit down, there's always a kid trotting over to stare at me.

Some of my kids are hairier than others.

Disconnecting my intenet connection with your head is a little much, don't you think??

Sheesh!