We've come a long way since the dunce cap!

I'm cuter than Miss Simpson was! J/K!

Wow!  It's been a long time!  I decided to go back to work.  Even though my husband and I are still trying to work things out, I don't ever want to be in the position of not being able to fend for myself if his paranoid jealousy ever raises its head again.

Looking for work was interesting.  Even schools are cutting back.  They are enlarging classes, and even combining them to keep from hiring.  I was offered two jobs that later were pulled out from under me because it would be more financially feasable to just give the existing teachers more work.

I finally found a very interesting job in the state mental health system as a secondary English teacher and as the school's coordinator.  The students are challenging, but I'm learning a lot as a teacher.  I have been an aide to an administrator before, but there is so much to learn in this job, that I'm a bit overwhelmed for now.

I miss staying home and crafting, but it has also been nice to get back out there and meet new people and learn new things! School policies change quickly and try to stay in sinc with the times.  No more students in neat rows, no paste made with flour and water, and no more film reels that used to break in the middle of movies films narrated by the same guy in every film watched from elementary to high school.  In the same way that many parents are confused as to what discipline to use to make their children behave, so teachers have become.  We would like well-behaved boys and girls like we used to see in "Leave it to Beaver" but without any of the stern methods that old Miss Simpson would have used to ensure this great behavior.  It would be great if good ole-fashioned respect worked, but our kids have been rightly taught to be wary of strangers and therefore they don't give respect automatically any more it seems-it needs to be earned.  Well, I'm going to be very busy in the near future figuring these things out.  I'll let you know when I come up with the answers.