5th Grade!

So I am going to be teaching 5th grade at Floyd Elementary next year! CRAZY!

The Dust Has Settled...

This morning I was sitting in a room with 40 other teachers, waiting to see who would have a job and who wouldn't, it was pretty nerve wrecking. I arrived on time, 8 o'clock, not earlier. Luckily, because they started the whole process REALLY LATE! At about 9am they started the whole thing. (For those of you who havec no idea waht was going on, Nye County School District decided to cut 28 elementary school teachers. They cut teachers from each school that were the lowest depending on their seniority, instead of cutting from the bottom of the seniority list. So now the teacher's had to bump other teacher who were less seniored...yes, yes.....A HUGE MESS!) So at around 9 am we start the bumping process. They took one person at a time and told them the jobs they were qualified for in the district and gave you the least seniored person to bump. Some people took a long time. I was the 16th person from the top, so at around 10:30 am I was called in.

Now I've been really nervous about this whole situation. First I was ANGRY! ANGRY doesn't even describe it, I loathed the person who made these decisions. Then I was SAD! Now I've come to grips with change...and even though this year at Hafen Elementary School we have had a "Dream Team," I'm reminded that life is full of changes. Something has to make sense somewhere...I feel that this is just such an insane move that somehow it was meant to be. I know it is actually. I am starting to feel more and more at peace with the idea that my only close friends here will soon be off to new adventures in the East. AND that Daniel is deployed. AND that I will be switching schools. I am ok with that. In fact, I am praying that Erik gets his dream job. Afterall, I really feel that he deserves this. I'm actually feeling like a change in schools wouldn't kill me, it will give me an opportunity to reinvent myself and not allow myself to get complacent in the workplace. I feel that God has to watching out for all of us and even though all of this is INSANE and CHAOTIC and feels UNNATURAL, we will all learn and grow and continue to live. I feel that God will protect Daniel and that we will all somehow make it through the mess that we call life.

Anyhow, I was given options of where to accept a job. The choice was obvious. And now I'm sitting on this decision and feeling it is okay. I haven't felt this much peace in a while. I'm so thankful that I feel this. I'm embracing myself for the next bump in life, as life goes....but until then, I'm glad the dust has finally settled.

Too nervous to sleep...

I am still up...and I have work in the morning! Actually, what I have is a displacement! I am going to be over at the Southern District Office, waiting around to TAKE someone's job! YIKES! ALL of this is just so crazy and is driving me crazy! I hope that it all works...well, I know that somehow all of this WILL work, it's just my nerves that aren't letting me think that.

The other day I was talking on the phone with a complete stranger, I had met her at a teacher conference. Her name is Marie. Anyhow, I was talking to her about a product I really want to use for math when she said, "Is everything ok? I can here an edge in your voice." I was totally shocked at the complete and total intuitiveness of this stranger and felt a connection. Marie told me several things that hit home, one of which was, "Jessica, you just need to trust life." I had never really thought of it that way. Trust life? Now that I've been thinking about that, I do. I do need to trust that whatever God has in store for me will happen. And I am starting to believe that. I am feeling calm. AND I've even began feeling that all of these things in my life that I feel are trials are beginning to be blessings in disguise. I cannot explain the thoughts that cross my mind or the feelings running through my body. Somehow I know it will be ok.

The Past Few Weeks: Spring 2009

These are some things we had a chance to do during March and April of 2009. =) We had a lot of fun exploring caves near our town. Visiting CA was a great adventure...UNTIL I got seasick!! But eventually all fun must come to an end, and Daniel was deployed April 18th.

First Year Anniversary 8-11-08

Fun stuff we did in Las Vegas!

My Sad News

Today teachers in Nye County School District were notified of RIF (reduction in force). Sadly I was one of the SEVEN teachers at Hafen Elementary School to receive a letter. What does this mean for me? For me this means that I must now displace another teacher at another school who has less seniority than me. What does this mean for Hafen Elementary School? Our beautiful school will be left with 14 teachers. How has this been allowed? How has this happened? How will our school be able to meet the K-3 class size requirement of 22 to 1 student to teacher ratio and grade 4-5 25 to 1 ratio? I do not have the answers. I mourn the loss of my position at Hafen Elementary, as it is an AMAZING educational facility! What I hope and pray for is that positions/allocations will be given back to Hafen. I often wonder, why Hafen? Especially when other schools are only losing 3-4 allocations/positions. This is a question I hope will be answered sooner than later, as the children of our school will be the ones to suffer the consequence.

Broken AC

SO Erik and Amanda watched Simba at our house. Yesterday they came home at 6pm and our AC was blowing hot air and sounded like DEATH! Well, it was pretty bad I guess...120 degrees downstairs!! Hotter upstairs!! I came home from my conference today and OH MAN! IT IS HOT!! I decided to assemble my portable AC and stick it out....we will see if Simba and I survive. Anyhow, looking forward to getting it fixed!

Michigan Pics.

May 2009

SO much has happened and I haven't done a very good job of keeping this updated, so here's a short little list of the major things:

April 18th-Daniel left to Indiana, in June he will leave for Afghanistan.
May 2nd- Michael got married. Welcome Shelby into the family!
May 8th-Find out I might lose job.
May 9th-Air conditioning stops working while I am at a Conference in Las Vegas and Erik and Amanda are watching Simba and the house. Simba almost dies of heat exhaustion!