post-interview

i am vaguely terrified after my interview, but it really helps that i came home to two emails on my gmail, one from my sister ann and one from linda, saying that they'd read my blog, compliments, support, etc. that does help. the interview was scary. i sat on one side of a big table in a conference room, and on the other side sat the associate principal who is my supervisor, the administrator who used to teach spanish whose place i've been taking, and the chair of the foreign language department. i have pretty good relationships with all of them and two of them in particular i even feel kind of close to, like they've mentored me, and we connected, and now i was "on the hotseat" there for them to judge how i present myself, what i've done, and whether i should continue compared to the other candidates they'd interviewed just before me while i was upstairs actually dealing with the kids and trying to teach them spanish two days before winter break. i felt like i was able to articulate my experiences previous to teaching in impressive and multi-dimensional ways. they hadn't heard that i worked as a bilingual crisis line coordinator at a battered women's law center in berkeley. they didn't know i lived with a family for a month in bolivia. and maybe they didn't know how much i'd opened my heart up to my students and let them in to survive. or that i really loved working at lincoln high and had wanted to work there since i decided to teach. i felt like having said all that, they'd be kind of heartless not to hire me . . . but i also admitted that i didn't think i'd had the kids speaking spanish enough, and that both katie and i had set the goal for next semester of really focusing on getting the kids to speak in spanish. it was hard admitting my shortcomings when other teachers get to go on having weaknesses with impunity and are not evaulated at semester for their position. they apologized for the awkwardness of it, which was nice to have recognized, but there was no reassurance accompanying the apology. this was/is still my reality. and it's not like i have cancer, and they were telling me my prognosis, but it oddly felt like that. i will be okay though either way. it's just that when you're trying to become a teacher, you kind of want the freedom and security to be able to accomplish that task. and i have not had the security. thankfully, i've not just been a subsitute teacher, but to be honest it's all frustrating when i have a lot more education and life experience than many of the new teachers who were hired this year, but i'll get off it because a) it pisses me off, and b) i try to be thankful for the result of my part-time position: i've been able to get experience at one of the most interesting high schools in lincoln teaching spanish while also getting experience teaching english at a community college, which one would think would make my prospects for the future all much better. it's been good, but damn, i just want a friggin' full-time job so i can get knocked up and have financial security for that and get on with my life. i'm almost 30, okay? i went to college for about 10 years, and i deserve a friggin' job. i'm a hard worker and all that, and this is just getting ridiculous.

thankfully, i had lunch plans with a friend who also happens to be a counselor so she did help me work through some of my immediate nervous feelings. and i'll know tomorrow (hopefully) and then have a break to try to get over or into all of this, whatever that might be. and i'll read and write some more blogs, go to some yoga, do the christmas thing . . .

my phone just rang, and it wasn't the school district offering me the job. but it was a friend who needed help about a difficult road i'd been down, and i was able to help. that was good.