Where have I been?  I’ve been wondering the same thing…

Long story short, work got to me.  I went in with enthusiasm but not a lot of energy, and it chewed me up.  Some of it is confidential.  Some of it I just don’t want to talk about.  I will say this…I still think I can teach and do well at it, somewhere else; and, for all the stuff I had a hard time with, I feel that there were things I had going for me that weren’t valued as much as they should have been.

So, I’m being released from my contract.  In theory I’m going to sub and find a part-time job.  In practice, hard to say.

Today, the job search began again. I got around to, final count, 7 different districts, to pick up the paperwork.  Tomorrow I need to take as many of those back as I can and get around to a few more.

I also got my personal belongings from the classroom…which sucked.  A few of my students were there–really decent kids, who I’ll miss.  Hopefully some of them will stay in touch, though it hasn’t happened yet.  Everyone was so nice; I almost fell apart.

Life is going to be extremely crazy for the next several months.  Subbing, some other kind of job (maybe working in a bookstore or tutoring), putting myself back together.  Preferably keeping the rest of it from falling apart.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Lots of Running Around Doing Stuff today…a workshop here, a little dental work there, plus my car got a small electric part fixed (I noticed it was going within the first 15 days, so the dealer paid). Most excitingly, I avoided being the middle car in a 3-car pileup.

I’d just gotten the car back. It was about 1:45, and I had a 2:00 dentist appointment about 20 minutes away. I’d just gotten onto I-10 and gone through the tunnel from Scottsdale, with the flow of traffic (i.e. about 70 MPH…why yes, the posted limit is 55 there…). As I left the tunnel and went around a curve, I realized that the car in front of me was stopping or slowing waaaaaay down. I had just enough time to verify that there wasn’t actually a car right next to me (not to check the blind spot, so in retrospect it could’ve been a fender-bender…still preferable) and swerve into the next lane over, which would end in less than a quarter mile but still give me time to slow down. I don’t think I touched the brakes until I got over…I don’t remember it, and I probably would’ve hit them hard enough to definitely feel it and maybe hear it.

A few seconds later, I heard a squealing skid and then a crunch. The Sebring has decent brakes, so it’s possible that I would’ve been able to slow down enough to not land in the hospital from the first impact. However, the back vehicle undoubtedly went right through wherever I would’ve been, which leads me to believe that getting out of the way was the right choice. If I hadn’t, the Sebring would be worth its weight in scrap. As I realized what I’d just avoided, I signaled, pulled back into the lane, and got the shakes a little.

I then called my dad to thank him for teaching me stuff about driving like “scan the road ahead” and “don’t just let go of the wheel, throw your hands up, and scream if it looks like something’s going wrong.” I’ve used that advice a lot of times, but the result had never been quite so dramatic as hearing a crash behind me that I would’ve been in.

If the world were fair, I could get a check from my insurance company for this. After all, they would’ve paid if I hadn’t gotten out of the way.

Vote plzkthx

To the piece-of-sh** d***weeds who sliced my Sebring’s hood, unlocked the door, popped the dash open, and yoinked my radio: Get a f***ing life.

Update: And why the frack grab the heat-A/C control box?  That thing doesn’t have a street value.  Moron.

After years of talking about how much qwerty sucks, I’ve finally done something about it.  The Windows system setting has been jiggled, the keys have been pulled off and rearranged (and incidentally some cat hair was removed)–my laptop is officially dvorak.  Now I just have to overcome the 15 years of muscle memory that tells me where the buttons “should” be.

“The firm hopes that the detectors could be used in searches for explosives or drugs…. To make a working device, the researchers insert the bees into a case where they are filmed as a fan draws in air from whatever is being examined. A computer provides an immediate read-out of the bees’ reactions.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6972526.stm

Please vote for my latest lolcat at http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/View.aspx?icanbecheezb128438724543700000.jpg

News for the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008:

At 2:55 there will be 142 days left until school’s out.  Yes, I have a countdown.

The top-voted Darwin Award winner for 2007 was actually two people who fell to their doom while getting it on on a roof.  If only natural selection would hurry up and weed out more idiots so that nice smart guys would be able to find me.

My skitty-kitty, Squirrel, is becoming much friendlier lately.  With purring and everything.  As a result of Operation Cuddly Squirrel, I may soon have a formerly-skitty kitty on my hands.  After having her for a year and a half, it’s about time!