'that won't keep me warm in the middle of the night'

writing from sara's in brooklyn - basically the apartment that i covet for my own. i've got an interview at 11am at the ebc-eny school for safety and law.

i feel pretty overwhlemed, having attended a placement fair yesterday in which hundreds of people with commitment letters like mine circled around a huge ballroom at the brooklyn marriott where schools with vacancies had reps. each school's table had a little sign showing the vacancies they had, and english positions were slim pickins for sure. there was an air of desperation and an overall competitive atmosphere i had not quite prepared myself for. i handed out eleven resumes, got one interview, but felt positive about a few of the different schools. the long shot i fell in love with was the bronx academy of leters, which seems in goals and procedures drastically different from any other public school i have known of. i liked the east new york family academy, too, which is a little bizarre in that it houses grades 6-12 - i'd never heard of a school with that configuration before. i was excited to talk to a man about an opening at prospect heights high school, which is in the area i would like to live, but found out -at least he was up front with me- that this is the school's last year. there are definite pros and cons to a one year arrangement like that. i kind of feel like it would be a good way for me to settle in and get my barings; i feel really uneducated as to what the more choice schools are around here and a year would give me the opportunity to do a lot of research to actively pursue a school i know i would really like to be at.

i feel kind of eh about the interview thins morning; ebc-eny didn't necessarily strike me as a school i'd be super-psyched to be at, but who really knows? i wasn't super-excited about NK when i started there, figuring i'd be there for a year while i figured out where i really wanted to teach. then all of a sudden it was 5 years later and i was still there.

i just feel swamped and crazy and desperate for a nice place to work. i don't feel like that's too much to ask. everyone keeps reassuring me that everything will work out, which i guess is true, but doesn't necessarily make me feel any better.