A new season commences

The beginning of summer. Our icky weather has finally warmed up. Climate change has done a number on my area this year. First we had such a drought that the governor officially declared it a disaster or emergency or whatever it is he declares things so as to make available money to help the victims (in this case the victims are farmers who are  trying to grow stuff in the high desert and will now be paid not to grow anything.). Then we had snow and rain all through the spring, which may or may not have been enough to officially change the drought situation but at least it made my dandelions happy. I'm talking Seasonal Affective Disorder in May and even the first of June. Now the sun has come out, the temperatures are in the 70s, but it's humid. I mean, we're east of the Cascade mountains, in the high desert beginnings of the Basin and Range Province. It's a dry place. But for the past couple of days it felt like East Tennessee in the spring: humid but not especially hot yet. At least I can go without a sweater now, but it's still weird.

School's out today. My sixth grader graduated yesterday, with tons of awards and a real live diploma. I cried through the whole thing, especially when the superintendant was reading Oh the Places You'll Go! as a last story for the sixth graders. I remember their first day of kindergarten so well, and now she's off to middle school. Sigh. At least I don't have any grey hairs yet.

In other news, the annual job hunt is in full swing. Got a "thanks but no thanks" letter from one of the elementary schools I'd applied to, and nothing yet from the other three. I'm branching out into not-as-much-in-my-field type jobs in this search. Our local theater and cultural center has an Outreach & Education director position, another social service type group has an education director, there are a couple of preschools on the radar, and I still have a lead on a not-yet-posted 5th grade position at Favorite Elementary. And adjunct teaching at the community college. So we'll see what develops.

I started this blog almost 2 years ago as a class assignment (ed tech, first quarter of the MAT program). I continued it mainly because it's kind of fun, but I can't help but notice that a disproportionate amount of the entries are all about Employment rather than Education. I guess our state's budget crisis (an additional 9% sliced off all state departments including Dept of Ed, on the heels of some other sort of big nasty cuts) means this will be a point of obsession for a while. At least I'm qualified if anything does open up, not that that was enough with any of the jobs I've applied for yet. Ugh.

Well, today's my 14th wedding anniversary. Enough doom and gloom. I'm going to bake a cake.