yesterday my brand-brand-brand new school acquired its official occupancy permit, so i went to check out my classroom and insure that my pile o' boxes and plastic totes arrived where it was supposed to. all my stuff had been living in a corner of the gym at my old (current) school until a county truck arrived monday to shuttle it and the belongings of the other 11 teachers from my school who got transferred. happily, i found all my things just where they should be, not to mention in the middle of a gorgeous, state-of-the-art potential den of learning.

CR still has the new-EVERYTHING smell, from furniture to carpet. no technology yet, save my (lovely) ceiling mounted projector, aimed at the blank spot on the wall that's awaiting my smartBoard. it's a little weird because i'm in a regular classroom - not reading teacher specific, so i have a class set of desks and built-in cubbies and things that kind of don't apply.

the thing that concerns me most about this transition at the moment is that I HAVE NO BUDGET. i have my gorgeous empty classroom and NO BOOKS. classroom teachers have received startup money already with more to come and me, nada. i honestly don't think that the powers-that-be , well, remembered me. considered that i can't take books from my current school. thought about the fact that i need to have things to put on my shelves and recommend to kids, and, you know, read with them.

i am part of the TLC (the learning connection) program in my county, and when i went to the head of TLC and asked about a start-up budget, there was not an answer. ditto for when i posited that question to my principal. i emailed the TLC head again today and was told as of yesterday, a different county person is now in charge of the program. i made contact with her right away and have a meeting tomorrow, but i can't help but feel a little pessimistic. unless she is a miracle worker and can make money fall from the sky - or books, for that matter, ouch - i just don't think i have been included in anyone's budget and i have no idea what to do about it.

i'll be in the nicest classroom with the nicest technology in the nicest school … with no books.

You know what I realized the other day?

No year of my life has been like any other year of my life since maybe 7th grade.*

7th grade was my last year in elementary school.
8th grade was at Stonewall Jackson.
9th grade was in trailers at Lee-Davis.
10th grade was dating Karen.
11th was fighting with Karen.
12th was spent hanging with Matt D, Eric and Ben. (Plus others.)
Then 4 years of college. All different.**
1999 was spent working.
2000 was spent at a different job.
2001 was spent in college, again. As was 2002.
2003 I was in LA, getting my Master's.
2004 I spent being sick.
2005 was spent finishing school and not finding a job. And the Sopranos videogame.
2006 was moving up to Mountain View and working.
2007 was about startup and moving to Cisco.
2008 has been about R moving mostly.

The point here is that nothing ever stays the same. Day-to-day, sure. The changes happen so slowly, so naturally in most cases, we don't notice the difference between the starting point and where we are.

There are certainly days I can wake up and ask myself, "How the hell did I get here?" And you know what? There isn't a single answer, a sole reason. The decisions compound and there is no going back.

But for everyone (including myself), what old days do you long for? You're recalling a single memory, not a time when things were better. Run towards the new and stop lamenting for days that never existed.

There is no reason in the world to thing you can stop change. And no reason in the world you should want to. Instead, let's have a party. Those are more fun anyway.

* That's a slight, slight lie — I believe that an argument could be made for me that 2001/2002 were similar. Though given 9/11, it's prob more fair to say that they weren't.

** Ok, we might be able to say that sophomore and junior years were a bit alike — I was dating Petunia both years and there was nothing too different about them, other than my roommate situation.

i had a complete meltdown last thursday.

i get to work early.  like, really early - almost an hour before we are required to be at school.  i hate getting up when it's dark-ish outside, but have realized i can get an awful lot done in 45 minutes of child and colleague-free time in my classroom before the day truly begins.  i'm usually the first one at school, save the custodial and cafeteria staff, who are already humming along as i arrive, travel mug of motivation glued to my hand.

imagine my surprise when my principal rolls into my room just a few minutes after my arrival.   the main office isn't usually even open when i get there.  she sits down in front of my desk and without much fanfare announces that in the decision has been made that i will be the reading teacher who will have to be transferred next year.

yeah, that's the sound of the ax dropping, on my leopard-lanyard-wearing neck.

i've come a helluva long way in a week.  i cried so fucking much that day.  which was terrible for obvious reasons but also especially terrible because who wants to cry in a building of 347 impressionable little munchkins they love?   i so resent the timing - i don't know what kind of good management style is represented by the early bird news delivery.  i resent the timing even more, of my principal returning to my room a mere hour after the bomb-dropping to ask me to come to the office to meet with the principal of the new school, the one i'd listed as my if-i-have-to choice on my intent form back in january when this mess was announced.   now i don't know about you, but puffy-faced and tear-stained with no advance notice is not how i'd choose to make a first impression on potential employers.

i guess he saw the potential for something under my sniffling,  bewildered exterior, because  he did, in fact, offer me a job at the end of the meeting.  and so in the span of an hour and a half i lost one job and gained another.

i'm trying to focus on the positive - a brand-spanking-new school that i will help open, hopefully the ability to outfit a classroom from scratch with generous financial means, state-of-the-art technology in every single classroom, administration i will seemingly like and -gasp!- respect . . . there is a lot to look forward to.

we all know how well i deal with change, right?

Ray mentioned how the game changes throughout life. So I'm taking that cue and running with it for a moment.

Being sick is my best example of game changing. Of the game changing. I was last in the hospital 3 February's ago. The real illness, the real blech, was almost 4 years ago now. 4 years the end of this month.

I don't count the days, the months, the years like I used to. I have stopped worrying about complications for the most part. But I still feel guilty, as I always have, when I bring up my emotions, my behavior as being influenced by the experience. By almost dying, by spending so much time wasting away, the month spent without eating, without getting out of a bed, without an undrugged mind. It's heady shit, just typing these things is making my eyes wince. I usually coat it all, dismiss it all. And when my parents say, 'You almost died,' I wave my hand dismissivly and say, 'But I didn't. And I wasn't going to.' But the truth is that I almost did, I easily could have and, in some parallel Earth, I probably did. It's easy to dismiss it because there wasn't a single 'oh shit' moment where everything was make or break. This was far more subtle, spread not into seconds or minutes or hours or even days, but into weeks. My body almost killed me. If my large intestine had been a little weaker, if the surgery was a few days later, if my doctors had been a little less talented…

But this is the what-if game. It isn't why I'm writing this.

There are a lot of emotions wrapped up in this experience. It opened my eyes to feelings and passions that resonate with me still today — an acute knowledge that I will be gone one day. That I will not be able to learn from things 200 years from now. That I will never see the future.

This is all I get.

And, though it is sometimes selfish, I have to do every single thing I can while I'm here. I have to find the balance between the 15 year old me, the 24 one, the 31 year old and the 72 year old. This is difficult. Not in the 'life is hard' way. But in the way that is is difficult to explain how prolonged illness with the threat of death looming changes one's outlook. There are many times that I simply shrug, I simply clam up because the person, the situation, can't relate to this viewpoint.

But that's a negative. The positive is that being sick has changed my life, changed everything about me. Game changing doesn't frighten me, as it does other people I know. I'm not scared of rules changing, of new circumstances, of change. I've been there, I've been through it and I've walked out the other side — in many ways, better for it. And in the worse ways — well, it can always be worse, right? "You take the good, you take the bad…" (That's right. I'm doling out life advice using "The Fact of Life" theme song.)

Worse is just a state of mind. Just as there is no ceiling to the glories of life, there is no floor either.

We can't be scared of the future. We can't look at change as a negative, as a stress maker, as a fear. Life is about change. And we are made of stronger stuff than to succumb to paralyzation.

happy aught eight!

the new year brought with it an unexpected staff meeting with the county superintendent. it seems that in creating the student body for a new school being created in the county, our children -and thus our faculty- is to be reduced by 1/3 in the upcoming school year. we are strongly encouraged to submit preferences forms so that when the regrouping occurs, displaced teachers may have an iota of input as to where they will end up.

the meeting created an inevitable pit in my stomach that shall last, no doubt, the 6-8 weeks it will take for said changes to be announced. when i moved from brooklyn and signed my contract with the county, none of this was mentioned. and i find myself wanting to throw and tantrum, stamping my foot and announcing that idon'twanna move, idon'twanna change, idon'twanna be the new person anywhere again.

my first choice would be to remain at my school. i'm not sure of the likelihood of this possibility. of the kids potentially affected by the redistricting, the majority of them are the students who receive title I and similar services. my school would no longer need 3 reading specialists and an aide. i am the low lady on the totem pole, but also have firmly planted myself as an important member of our environment through extra roles like SCA sponsor and staff photographer. i'm not sure how i would weigh in vs a more senior staff member.

and part of me wonders, if 1/3 of the staff goes, what will my school become, and will i even want to be there? if my closest 4 or 5 friends go, is it worth staying?

my 2nd preference, i think, would be to go to the new school. there is defintely a lot to be said for working in a new building; i've never worked in a school without faults related to the building's age. to me there is also something desirable about being part of a group of people who are starting something together, building and establishing something rather than entering a new environment already firmly created. i'd rather be one of a bunch of newbies than a newbie on my own.

and ultimately i'm sure everything will be fine, and i'll adapt, and things will settle. i do know and believe that. but hanging in the uncertainty causes me to fret continually. i've worked hard to make this school into my home, and my sense of loyalty and attachment are pretty big.