Disconnection and Car Trouble

I don’t have internet in my new apartment yet, and I’m one of those hold-outs who doesn’t yet own a smart-phone.  As such, my internet access is few and far-between.  I snag some time at the library when I can (but their internet is pretty slow), and right now I’m sitting in the Cafe area of the hospital where my husband works.  When I do get online, it’s usually to look up “necessary” things, such as insurance agents and auto mechanics.  I’ll check my e-mail and glance through Facebook a little, too.  If I have a little extra time, I’ll read a blog post or two, but I haven’t spent a ton of time on the blogosphere, or in the world of social media in general, actually.

Yeah, sometimes it’s inconvenient.  When I want to shoot off an e-mail to someone, I can’t just pull out my laptop and send it off.  I have to plan out how and when I’ll make it happen.  We don’t have a TV, either, and I haven’t made a habit of listening to the radio, so I’m woefully behind on the news, and I never know what the weather is going to be like.  I got caught out running errands in a horrible rain storm a week ago because I had no idea it was coming.  It wouldn’t have been a problem, except I was driving the car with unreliable windshield wipers (more on that later).  Oh well.

Let’s Fix it With a Petition! (…or not)

About two months ago, the principal made an announcement to the school informing everyone that he’d hired a former student to be a new English teacher next year.  Given my tentative situation as a long-term sub, all my students assumed that meant he’d hired another teacher instead of hiring me on permanently.  They came rushing up to my room after lunch, expressions frantic, asking “you’re not coming back next year?!”

The only answer I could give them was “I don’t know.”  It’s a complicated situation.  I’m still in the running, but I know he is considering other teachers for my position, too.  This new teacher he’d hired was a whole separate situation and had no bearing on my job.  However, I wasn’t at liberty to discuss most of the details with my students.  While I tried to assuage their fears as well as I could, I also couldn’t give them the certainty they wanted.  So they expressed their teenage outrage at my tenuous position and what appeared to be the hiring of my replacement.  “We should tell them that we want you back,” they announced.  “We should start a petition for them to keep you!”  And honestly, if I’d encouraged the idea instead of discouraging it, they probably would have done it.