School Update

September was a very busy month. Nathan and I had to adjust to my first teaching job. With the job came many opportunities to learn and grow professionally. It was a test of endurance for sure, but the experience reconfirmed that I love teaching. It was a busy year and I missed out on a lot of fun with friends and family. Now that it is summer I intend to live it up, trying to make up for lost time.

“[Teaching] is what gets inside you. It’s what lights you up, you can’t deny that…. It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard…is what makes it great.” 

Teaching is hard. Countless hours of lesson planning and grading. Emailing parents and meeting with counselors. Weekly staff meetings… It’s worth it when they tell me that mine is their favorite class. It’s worth it when I see they’ve really learned something they can apply to their lives. It’s worth it when the students succeed. The hard is what makes it great.

I taught several long, and many short, units as well as daily mini lessons. Some of the texts we covered in ninth grade included poetry, short stories, novels, and nonfiction articles.

·         Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

·         The Lottery – Shirley Jackson

·         Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

·         Romeo and Juliet – Shakespeare

Tenth grade

·         Through the Tunnel – Doris Lessing

·         Scarlet Ibis – James Hurst

·         Lord of the Flies – William Golding

I learned a lot and I look forward to the next opportunity I have to teach. I have applied to many district “teacher pool” positions. I have also applied to a couple specific positions. I have great recommendations from the administrators at MTHS, so I can only hope they go a long way to help me get a job for the 2012-13 year. I will update as I have more news.

Season of Change

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven - Ecclesiastes 3:1

We've been very blessed recently.

Back in April, Nathan's bank laid off several people in his department. He was blessed enough to keep his job. Since then, he had been picking up more duties, doing the jobs that 4 people used to do. He's always been a hard worker and isn't one to complain, but when the time for raises kept getting postponed he decided enough was enough. They made an offer for a raise... but it was insulting based on the amount of work he's doing. So Nathan made a counter offer that more accurately compensated for the work he does, and management accepted his counter offer. Now were blessed with a greater opportunity to save for the future.

On August 5th we were blessed again. The federal government lifted the hiring freeze for Special Agent applications. At 12:01am Nathan's alarm woke him up so he could submit his application without delay. A week or two later he talked to some of his co-workers who have connections with the Seattle field office. It's hard to know who is actually connected and who just thinks she is, so time would reveal if the connections were real.

September 2nd - Nathan checked his email and found out that he had been selected to advance to Phase One of testing. He set his test appointment for September 10th, and he'll know more about two weeks after that.

I have also been blessed with hope lately. On August 25th I found out that a teaching position opened up last minute at a school where I have some significant connections. Once the position was officially posted online I submitted my application. I spoke with someone there and he said the principal was interested in having me start the year as a sub until they officially hire someone to take the position. Then a couple days later the secretary from the school called to see if I could come in for the department meetings. Although it's not official, I feel strongly that I will be offered the position. I'm excited and nervous, and have a lot of planning to do. But I feel supported there. It's time to show them what I'm made of. I will have two freshman classes and two sophomore classes (English). The position would be for this year, and might not be renewed next year. I'm happy for the opportunity to get experience and add to my resume. It might make job searching smoother next year.

Stay tuned for more big announcements!
I'll be sure to keep everyone updated as news comes in.

Since Nathan graduated we have been planning...
Planning a trip to Italy to visit Christie, Chris and Teddy.
Planning how to save for the future

First 5K

In June Nathan and I decided that we were going to run a 5k together, with some of his friends. We registered and started running in preparation. We also got some great new shoes from the Brooks Outlet in Bothell. We had several recommendations to get our shoes there. They were very friendly and knowledgeable there and we both got shoes we really liked.

Registration was at 6:30am and our race was scheduled to start at 8:15am. Since this was our first race we didn't know if we needed to be there right at 6:30 or not. Turns out we didn't. That's ok. We got our envelopes and our T-shirts and went back to the car to rest up. Our T-shirts are construction orange, so I guess we've got something bright to wear next time we're doing a service project.


We went with two other couples so we found them and got pumped up! One of the couples run quite regularly, so we knew we wouldn't be keeping up with them. The other couple that signed up was running their first 5K also. We expected to finish closer to them, but we were wrong. That's not what's important though. We had fun and accomplished something together. And we set our first record time: 37 minutes. Next time we'll set a goal to improve our speed.