9 days

is it luck, or was it really time for me to leave my old job? i think a little bit of both.
nevertheless, 9 days after i got "let go" from ASTT, i got a new job. i'm now the operations manager of One World Education, an education/literacy organization working in both public and charter schools in D.C. if you haven't completely tuned out to my many "dream" musings, one of them was to work with a literacy organization in some fashion. and here we go -- it took a kind of roundabout way, but here i am.
check out their website at www.oneworldeducation.org. but if you don't have time the reader's digest version is this:
Students in both middle school and high school write reflections about any social issue they want and submit it to the volunteer corps of teachers and content specialists at One World Education. the issues range from globalization through a student's trip to Bhutan to AIDS in D.C. to bullying to growing up in Ghana to....
one student's reflection is chosen a month by the program team and the former teachers/PhDs/curriculum creators create a unit plan and curriculum about this issue for use in a classroom, with all the standards and such included too -- with the "ambassadors" reflection as the primary source text. really freakin cool, right?
right.
right now One World Education is working in 25 schools and has been going for 2 years. now they're building up the administration and infrastructure to get bigger and to reach more students. i'm so jazzed to be a part of this organization -- the idea is really cool and i think there's a lot of potential for growth. and the little writer inside of me smiles.
i'll be officially starting June 7.
i'm still not sure how this happens. but i'm always happy when it does.

p.s. - coming to visit the PNW in a few days -- ready for a weakley family wedding, catching up with old friends (anyone remember mike hinman, anyone?...yeah...), and heading up to camp to hopefully reassure the new camp counselors they, in fact, won't kill their campers. in the words of my mom, "i get tired just thinking about it."

see...

...what's great about getting fired is, nothing.
nope, nothing really.

-- you walk into the room and immediately know. it's like something has died. (oh wait, it's your financial stability). and then, the person who's firing you just says blahblahblahRESIGNATIONblahblahblahJUSTKEEPITFORYOURRECORDSblahblahblahQUALITYOFPERFORMANCEblahblahblahEFFECTIVEIMMEDIATELY.

-- and then this chill comes over you. it's as if someone has decided to shake your hand with an electric fence. and leave you there like the fish out of water flopping around in that mid-90s alt-rock video (the artist escapes me).
and then, all i wanted to do was throw my chair through the window. unfortunately, it was wicker so it probably would've just bounced off the window. unfortunate.

i didn't cry, i just looked down and said, "ok then." then i bolted. then i called mom and cried.

mistakes were made on my part (we'll call them 'personality clashes') and i wish them the best. (that's the politically correct thing to say, right?)

at least they waited until two days AFTER my birthday to fire me. so that's something.

p.s. no need for a pity party. just another job.