My Time.

So I've yet to find a job.  I really am OK with that, though.  It means I have lots of time to work on other things.  What I'm doing now is the subject of today's blog post.

First and foremost, my focus is getting paid to teach.  So the job hunt continues.  Instead of having it consume my time and life, though, the search is part of the periphery for life.  I am getting ready to take other Praxis II tests, which will allow me to qualify to teach other subjects here in Virginia and other places in the nation.  I'm not sure which test I should start with, though.  I figure I can pass the Praxis II that will make me eligible to teach secondary (6-12) English almost immediately, as well as the middle school tests in math and science.  I don't think it'll take too much time and/or effort to pass secondary math and science, but it'd be harder than the above three.  You see, in my dream, I end up in a rural school somewhere that I can teach multiple subjects, allowing me to see the growth in students in more than just one subject.  Think Eastern Oregon, for example.  Kansas.  Oklahoma.  Eastern Washington.  Northern Colorado.  Southern Utah.  West Virginia.  So the hunt and preparation for jobs continues.  We'd love to be close enough to a temple (and an airport!) that we can go any time, but far enough from a city that we don't have to deal with the hustle and bustle of city life.  I'd also like to have some land with which my kids can play.  "Watch the corn!" sounds a lot more useful than "watch Mommy's flowers!" to me, because we can eat the corn. 

Also, I found an awesome website where some of the best universities in the nation offer free (uncredited) classes for free.  Coursera has 117 courses at present, and I am signed up for six (!) of them.  The first one starts in just under two weeks, and it's on gamification.  In fact, that's the title of the course.  What is gamification?  It's "the application of digital game design techniques to non game problems," which in my case, is another way of saying using games to teach.  It's taught by a UPenn teacher, and I'm really excited about it.  Other courses I'll take are on online education (taught by a teacher at the Georgia Institute of Technology), computational investing (G.I.T.), irrational behavior (Duke), Greek and Roman mythology (UPenn), and a history of the world since 1300 (Princeton).  There are lots of other courses that I wanted to take, as well, but figured 6 was enough for now.  Anika will join me, along with at least one other friend, for the mythology course, and we'll Skype study sessions.  Or at least that's the plan.

Also, I'm running two newspaper routes for the Roanoke Times.  The hours stink, but I don't really have to deal with people, so I don't mind too much.  We'll see how that changes with the seasons.  Right now, it's foggy, but warm, if rainy.  We'll see what happens when the temperature drops.  Of course, maybe we'll have a Winter like last year, when the jet stream kept the season up North.

I'm also helping around the house.  I get to clean a lot more than I would if I had a full-time job.  Maybe by the time I get a full-time gig, I'll be ready to move to said job.

Meanwhile, we're preparing for Babe to start kindergarten, Bub and Duck to start preschool, and I'm writing lesson plans for my hopeful future job.  Life continues, teaching job or none.

...and I couldn't imagine being happier with it!