Employment Purgatory

When I was delightfully and obliviously acing my 4 year elementary education degree program, we were told that the average certified teacher right out of college will have to suffer through 8 interviews before landing a job.

I have had 5.  However, it never got brought to our immediate attention that interviews aren't the end-all be-all of the job train.  Or the only way in which one's self esteem and confidence can be built or dashed.  I have applied and NOT received interviews (what were they thinking!?) for 18 positions in the past year.

Except for a few bouts with disorganization and procrastination, elementary school was easy.  High school was even easier.  When college came around, and I got a taste of freedom, I learned nothing from my academic classes and everything from the life lessons associated with the consequences of slacking off.  When I began to make real goals, it was challenging. . .but easy.

Almost every job I've had before now has come to me without too much hard work or that go-getter attitude.  I have been lucky enough to have connections which, while they did not GET me the job, certainly helped in getting me noticed in the first place.  All I had to do was show up and be awesome.  Which I am.

And yet, I keep forgetting that.  If I have to hear, "-Insert glowing praise here- BUT we decided to go with another candidate because -insert insider knowledge reason here-" I am going to curl up into a ball and become a fossil so that, one day, millions of years from now, a happy-go-lucky scientist can happen upon me and I can finally be worth something to somebody.

Here is where those people in my life who truly love me pipe up, "Oh Beth, you are worth the world to us."  I know.  And that means the world to me.  It still doesn't get me a job.

This area is so weird.  There are teachers who I subbed for last year who were not invited back due to budget restraints.  Now, these people are out there looking for jobs, too!  I'm on the same playing field as them and they've got the advantage because they've had their own classroom.  Everywhere I go, I'm stuck in some kind of strange limbo between the experienced elementary school teachers and the pre-schools who claim they can't afford me because I'm overqualified.

Nobody wants me.  I'm too little or too much.  Good but not good enough.  Each "Sorry, but. . ." phone call gets harder and harder.  I am running out of steam.  I have my faith to keep reminding me that, if I continue to do my part, the way will be shown to me and I will receive the position I am supposed to have.  Something about this experience is supposed to be teaching me something.  And if there's anything I've learned about teaching throughout my career (or lack thereof) it's that learning is the greater portion.

I am learning quite emphatically that I have had it way too easy for way too long.

Ok.  Lesson learned.  Can I have a job now?

This Book Is Going Down!

And I shall be incommunicado for awhile.

Warning: Do not Google "Lost Camera"

Where, oh where, has my camera gone?

Adam and I actually had to sit down with the calendar a few days ago to figure out exactly when it was we last used the camera and when it was that we noticed it was missing.  As we stood in the kitchen, glaring at the last weeks of July, rolling our eyes and screwing up our mouths into the telltale face of total recall, we began to realize two things:

1.  We have terrible memories.
2.  We are really boring.

Thank goodness for timestamps.  The last time we remember having the camera outside of this house was when we took a quick adventure trip up to Point No Point Beach & Lighthouse.  With the posting of my blog entry three previous to this one, it's obvious that the camera made it back safely.

Our miniscule place is 844 square feet.  And yet, that 844 square feet seems to be very adept at swallowing up items, making them utterly impossible to find.  Although, this is the first time that neither Adam nor I have been able to discover where this blasted thing is!  Neither have we had an epiphany leading us to any idea of where it could have gone.

I have done everything except literally tear this place apart.  I'm thinking I might need to implement a CSI-type search.  Not sure what a black light or powdered sugar may bring to light but I'm pretty sure it won't be the camera.  I am completely at a loss.  And totally frustrated.  I mean, there are only so many places this thing COULD be!  I've begun wandering around like an idiot, just calling out to it; willing it to suddenly appear in the gazillion spots I've already checked at least 3 or 4 times.  I need to tape off sections and just go to town, moving and removing so there is no question.  If I find myself staring at a spot, thinking to myself, "It couldn't possibly be there,"  I must check it out!  Otherwise, it will eat at me all day that it could be there if only I had checked.  By then, it would be too late, however.  Seeing as the thing has definitely sprouted legs or wings or a slime trail or something.

I have this feeling that it's sitting out in the open somewhere and, because it's been missing so long, I'm completely overlooking it.  My brain is focused on the fact that it must be hidden.  I've begun worrying about the following possibilities:

• One of us placed it on the shelf in the closet and it fell into the recyclables which have been tossed several times already.
• It somehow got swept into the garbage.  Maybe my hands were full of both garbage and non-garbage because I was trying to multi-task and it all went terrible wrong.  Like that time I was eating a lollipop and writing on the chalkboard.
• Someone took it.  Maybe sweeping it into their bag by mistake and it's sitting somewhere on someone's floor with the unintentional thief none the wiser.
• One of us has blocked out the memory of taking the camera out of the house and it fell out of our vehicle or was left on the roof.
• It is somewhere in the nether regions of the 4th dimension where all the left socks go and we will not see again unless we purchase a new camera and we've had it just one day past its return date.
• We never had a camera.
• The super plush shag rug has a deeper pile than I thought.
• For some reason, it was in my big ol' totey Fossil bag and it fell out as I was struggling with a bunch of crap.  Sounds like me.
• I am actually repelling technology now.
• Adam or I cleaned up and put it in a spot that, at the time, we KNEW we'd forget but that we thought made enough sense to be rediscovered.  This is hardly ever the case.  Never change an item's home.
• There is a secret extra room or closet somewhere in this apartment that I have never seen.  Room of Requirement?  Where are you when I need you?

The saddest part of this story hearkens back to another time when I was so dependent on media that my entire concept of reality became skewed.  It was around 9th or 10th grade and I had been playing way more video games than is normally healthy for someone under 40 who doesn't live in her mom's basement (it was the attic for me.)  The following occurred as I was walking home from school, purely by subconscious memory, lost in my own thoughts.  I don't remember what I was debating but I was trying to make an important real-life choice (important for a 15 year old, anyway) and get this. . .I genuinely thought to myself, "Well, Beth?  You could save now!  And if it doesn't work out, go back and try a different approach."  Sad, right?

A week ago, after searching and searching and searching to no avail, I began to feel like, for the first time, the internet had failed me.  Whenever I'm having trouble with anything, I can always "look it up!"  I was legitimately saddened and disappointed by the fact that I couldn't just google "lost camera" and have my problem solved.

You never quite notice how many photo ops there are until you have no way of recording them.  How will I chronicle the ever-anticipatory moment when my copy of Cold Vengeance by the brilliant horse-back rider Douglas Preston & lively banjo player Lincoln Child arrives?  At least I have my Team Pendergast chums to fall back on.  I can live through their photos.  What did we do back when cameras were just a novelty?  Or before there were any at all?  Perhaps I may need to invest in a stone and chisel.

Camera come back! 

You can blame it all on me.

I was wrong!

And I just can't live without you.

You know you miss these faces.