Saturday, September 12, 2009

Just Whistle While You Work...

You may recall that a few posts ago I mentioned that I was still awaiting employment for the year. I may have said that I don't dwell on it; that I just wait for the roulette wheel to stop spinning and take advantage of the free time.

Perhaps I lied.

I must confess that yesterday I was a little stressed. Yesterday was the day that the school district was expected to have reviewed any requests by administrators for additional classes based on increased enrollment. I had it on good authority that I was VERY high on the recall list (maybe as high as second) so once those classes were approved I was pretty much a shoe-in for getting my pick of jobs. So while I waited for the phone to ring I did what I do when I am stressed or have nervous energy to expend.....I cleaned.

Odd, I know. I don't binge eat. I don't pace. I don't bite my nails. I clean.

This is an especially odd habit as I do not profess to be the world's best housekeeper. With two long-haired animals living in the house I have given up the battle against pet hair. I vacuum once - perhaps twice - a week and try to ignore the loose clumps of hair lying around the rest of the time.

So yesterday I attacked the build up of dust, dirt, hair and clutter with a vengeance. You kow those knick knacks that reside above your cupboards? I cleaned all those with Lysol wipes and dusted the tops of the cupboards with my Swiffer duster. I pledged my wood cupboard doors. I removed everything from my kitchen counters, wiped everything off and disinfected the counters before returning everything to its place. My kitchen sparkled. It would have been an excellent night to come for dinner.

Next I tackled the bathroom. Ugly job but when you live alone there's no one to delegate it to. I tried delegating it to Tucker once. Instead of cleaning the toilet bowl he just drank from it.

So, donning my rubber gloves, I removed everything from the windowsill and counter, wiped them off just as I did with the kitchen clutter, disinfected the counter and returned everything to its rightful place. I even sorted through my jewelry and organized it in the beautiful wooden jewelry box I never use. It now has a place of honour and maybe I'll get into the habit of wearing some of the nioce pieces I own (not likely but I tend to be an optimist).

So a few hours later I had a sparkling kitchen and a sanitary bathroom....but the phone had not rung. All was not lost. I still had a mountain of laundry to fold. That would keep me busy for another hour if need be.

At 5:15 the phone finally rang. I don't know if my feet even touched the ground as I raced to answer it. As expected it was the staffing officer for elementary schools. I'm sure I was beaming. A job! At long last...a job! What would be? I could hardly wait the curiouslity was eating at me.

She offered me a grade 4/5 class (full-time) and mentioned that there were also two 1/2 Kindergarten classes available. I would still have to apply to be in the class permanently but I didn't care....I was going to be teaching!

I accepted the grade 4/5 position. I had been hoping for something younger (grade 2 or 3) but anything below grade 6 was bearable. I could hardly wait to get into the class and set it up and start planning.

That was when she broke the not-so-great news to me.

There were only the two full-time jobs and I was THIRD in line. I had been offered the position temporarily until it was filled because she hadn't been able to get through to one of the people ahead of me. Two jobs....third in line. I wasn't liking the math.

Ever the optimist I am choosing to believe that a) another even BETTER job will surface in the next week that I will be the successful candidate for or b) One of the people ahead of me will choose not to apply for some reason.

In the meantime, I have a very clean kitchen and bathroom and at least a week of full-time work.

Definitely could be worse :-)

1 comment:

  1. Keep smiling, your day will come (and very soon, I hope)

    ReplyDelete