it's official

so, almost exactly a week ago, i didn't now where or what i'd be doing. as of yesterday, right after my interview with the school that i had originally really wanted (CW), i officially accepted a job with the new elementary school (the one with the type A principal). tentatively, i'll be teaching 5th grade, which sounds a little scary. and i start teaching on july 5th. my first break comes in mid-november, just before thanksgiving and goes through until january 1st - a nice long winter break. coolness. i'm pretty darn excited.

so, yesterday, i had my interview at CW - where i had originally wanted to work. the interview was supposed to be for 30 minutes, but i was in there with the interview panel (7 people in all - 5 teachers and 2 administrators) for about 45 minutes. and can i just say, they asked a few bizarre/weird questions. normally, you get questions like:

tell me about what makes you unique

what are your strengths and weaknesses?

what is your classroom management style/plan?

what are some instructional strategies you will use to gain your students' attention?

those are expected run of the mill and valid questions, which i did get. but i was also asked by one of the teacher interviewers:
"so, i see you've worked with writing before...and we all know how difficult writing is for our students. how would you teach students suspenseful writing?"

umm...seriously? what kind of question is that? it's so randomly specific. a bunch of the other experienced teachers at my school were wondering if he just wanted ideas for his grade level curriculum. anyway, i told my advisor that i had some bizarre questions, and he thought they were weird too, and he's taught for several years and is pretty familiar with the interview process.

here's another one:
"so when you first start out teaching, you're all excited and passionate, but as you teach, you lose some of that. it's not that you get jaded, but you do get worn down. what are some things that you plan to do to take care of yourself so that you'll be teaching many years from now?" i only think this is a weird question because the answer seems kind of obvious. have a life outside of teaching. people to talk to, friends, colleagues...whoever. have hobbies - cardmaking, knitting, sports, etc. have a life = mental health. i was seriously confused - still am - i didn't really get what they were looking for in terms of an answer. if they wanted something revolutionary, they didn't get it.

and, i was asked to respond to a question in spanish. two of my other friends also had interviews the same afternoon. one is latina, the other is 3/4 cantonese and 1/4 peruvian and she speaks spanish fluently. ok, so all three of us are candidates for the spanish bilingual credential. the latina girl does NOT get asked to answer anything in spanish, but the two of us asian kids do. umm...racial inequality, anyone?

inspite of the odd line of questioning, i had a pretty good time during the interview and i felt good leaving it and the administrator/coordinator had mentioned that we would be notified in about two weeks. i knew that they were planning to take their sweet time with the process prior to the interview, so that they could have their pick of the litter of teachers. before the interview, i had basically already decided that i wasn't going to wait around for their decision-making process because it was too drawn out and because i wasn't able to get a sense of where i stood with the school from my prelimintary interview a week and a half ago - which had left me feeling uncertain all last week - it was stressing me out and i don't normally get super anxious about things. by memorial day, i had already decided to take the job at the new school. so, i was pretty sure about the new school, but i went to this interview just to check/confirm my decision. anyway, i wasn't expecting to hear from this school, CW, until june 13th. i had planned on calling them this morning to withdraw as a candidate, but i didn't end up getting around to it.

and so, i got home today and checked the voice message - CW unofficially offered me a position at the school. the coordinator said that the panel really enjoyed the interview, that they really liked me, and that the principal would be calling me next week to make it official. i'm glad it went well, and it feels great knowing that they thought enough of me to think that i would be a good addition to their school. sadly, i now have to call back and turn them down - stink. but i still think i made the right decision to go to the new school. i know i'm going to have a lot of support and structure and organization at the new school because my principal is all over it - she's type A and she has plans...lots of them.

i'm so glad to be done with the job/interview process. and i'm glad i got the experience - this round of interviews redeems the negative interview experiences of my past.

who wants to volunteer to help me set up my classroom at the end of june? :)

cool music in NYC

if you're in new york on june 1st, stop by the cutting room to hear some nifty music.

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i'm getting really close to being done with my first year! i only have to get through to the 14th and then i'll really be done! the biggest stress-inducing project is finished. i officially turned it in online yesterday (monday) at 12:40pm. hurrah! compared to PACT (the project), everything else is cake - more or less. and now, i'm sitting in lecture not paying attention. i love it. i love the end of the school year.

getting ready

the exodus is sending a group of people to new orleans to partner with celebration church and do some relief work. i'm going with them and we fly out of LA next sunday night (june 4th). in preparation, most of us received tetanus shots today at church and now our arms are sore. like...really, really sore. please keep our team in mind as we prepare ourselves this week and next week, when we're actually there. thanks!

MIA and the things that kids say...

three weeks sure do pass quickly. we had the fast and it was AMAZING. i felt so near to God and so at peace and in tune with him and it was all about spiritual motion forward to a deeper relationship. now, two weeks later, i'm in the midst of winding down my first year in the teacher ed. program and there's so much to do and i'm not feeling a whole lot of peace and it feels the complete opposite of my fasting week. i want fasting week. instead, i've got one week of student teaching left, one week of grad school coursework, and three days to turn in a huge 20-pg single spaced write-up about a lesson unit that was videotaped. oh, and i have to find a job. i'm EXHAUSTED. but i guess it's a little exciting too, getting ready to jump into my ownblah classroom...assuming i figure out where i'll work.

this is where it gets more crazy. i've had one interview and the principal called me back the next day to offer me a position. this is a big deal only because there seems to be this shortage of good teaching positions and an abundance of us grad school kids looking for jobs. but, i'm just not sure about the principal and the school. here's a breakdown:

pros:

new school - completely environmentally sound - concrete, paint...everything, and it is all about windows for natural light - no jailhouse feel here.

neighborhood - north of k-town in a fairly nice area, considering the fact that it is still considered a low-performing school...even though it hasn't even opened its doors yet. plus, it's two blocks from grace's school - we could hang out!

teammate - a friend from the team has already accepted a position

wants to do the best by the students

principal - no nonsense, clear expectations, and i get along with her

cons:

new school - no established culture or any data about how the environment would actually be

principal - hardcore, type A, asian-american overachiever and potential taskmaster who does not seem flexible...at all. it may be too much to handle in my first year of teaching, plus completing my masters, and having to do coursework for my permanent/clear credential. and she's crazy "by the book" even when the set policies stink and she knows it.

plus, according to the conversations i've been having with my advisor, she's trying to pressure me into a quick answer to join their staff - he says she's playing hardball. eesh.

then there's this other school where i have an interview next wednesday, but it sounds like they've called everybody and their mother in for an interview and i'm not really sure how interested in me they actually are. again, my advisor says he knows for a fact that the principal is "EXTREMELY interested." eh...but who really knows...

and, i met with a cool principal at a reception our program had and he took my resume and plans to contact me should a spot open up, which he suspects it will. unfortunately, i found out that the school doesn't qualify as one of our partnership schools, so that's out of consideration even if he actually calls.

i hate the job process...looking, interviewing...it's part of why i was just never that fond of in business school. i just want to teach - not deal with all this political blah junk and "game"-playing with principals.

the kids are pretty much the thing that is keeping me motivated to actually go through the job process. it's a necessary evil to get to where i want to be. plus, they say the darndest things. my 2nd graders have been reading about martin luther king, jr. and black and white relations during the civil rights era and we've been having a lot of really wonderful conversations about it all, slavery too. at the end of one of the days, one of the kids asked me, "are we white?" ok, all my students are students of color - latino and cantonese. without going into the whole technical, nitty-gritty parts of european colonization in latin america, i explained that we're not white because our families didn't come from europe - basic level idea of a huge complicated mess. then another student, a latina girl asks, "then, are we gringos?" i told her it's generally a term applied to white people, so no, we aren't gringos.

this brings me to tonight. i have never been stopped by a police officer while walking on the street. a bunch of us went to see x-men 3 earlier tonight and the westside carpool was leaving the theater (after midnight) and we noticed a police officer in his car int he parking garage talking through the passenger window to some random asian girl. ok...whatever. we starts to drive away and then slows and looks at us, then drives away again. uh...ok. so we're talking next to the garage to the next block where the car is parked. we leave the garage area and step out onto the street and the officer has put on his lights and stepped out of his car and called for our attention. so he walks up to us and asks my friend for her name - no reason given. weird...red flags. she asks him why, which i thought was valid. he asks for her name again and she tells him her first name. now he wants her last name. there's some chiming in and questioning of why and he gets all authoritarian and says that he's speaking to her, asking her the question. so anyway, he gets her last name and then says that he's out looking for a missing girl who is a short asian wearing a blue sweater. uh...dude...we're in alhambra...it's all short asian girls who could be wearing blue sweaters. seriously...it didn't make a whole lot of sense. and the officer was a 35-40 year old white guy. i'm still trying to figure out what the heck happened...it was just so weird. and the stereotype of white police officers has just been reinforced.

day 1

the first day of the fast is over. today wasn't really too bad. it's tomorrow and wednesday that worry me - when i'll really be hungry, tired, and weak. people from church gathered tonight to worship and pray for our church and for one another. this is the plan for every night of the fast.

Lord, we wait expectantly on You.

blogging time

i think there were a bunch of moments when i wanted to do some blogging, but somehow, something else always took precedence. this last week felt like a really, really long week. i'm sure i'll remember some of it later. :)

today marks the beginning of a week-long fast at the exodus. as a church, we're going to go on a liquids-only fast for one week as an act of worship, to help us re-focus on needing Jesus, and to give room for the Holy Spirit to make clear to us things about our lives and our church. it should make for an exciting, interesting, and hungry week.

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i feel like most of my stories are about teaching. but since that is where i spend 7-9 hours of my day, it makes sense. anyway, on friday afternoons the 2nd graders sometimes get some free time in the afternoon. two boys, carlos and anthony put on a puppet show. i think the part that i found most amusing is when anthony was introducing the three finger puppets he had: a lion, a giraffe, and a panda. he said, "my name is RAWR" (for the lion), "my name is spots" (for the giraffe), and "my name is whitey" (for the panda - which he called the chinese bear). hahaha...the best puppet show i've seen!

sensory details

on saturday, i was walking along weyburn, going up to UCLA for the festival of books, and there was this smell in the air that reminded me of being in spain 2 years ago. for this one quick moment, i wasn't walking in the middle of westwood - i was stepping off the bus from the airport into the center of granada, trying to find my hostel. maybe it's because i'm getting antsy from all these classes and the upcoming stresses of finding jobs and getting stuff done for the program, but i very much want to leave the country for a little bit, to explore the world out there some more.

even today, i was leaving campus and walking to my car and near the quad, there was this tea smell and i saw portland summers and barley tea. i think i'm looking for a break from all of the things that are going to be due in the next few weeks. i think i may be in avoidance mode.

random note: i'm so not made to handle high-maintenance people. this may or may not be explained later.