|

Monday, May 02, 2005

I just wasted several hours of my life in the Meramec River bottoms somewhere off the deep end of Gravois. Today’s slice of humble pie was served to me by my odd impulse to work for a moving company. I like to help people move. I’m much stronger than you would think just by looking at me. The job would get me in shape. The idea of paying a gym to whip your ass into hard-bodied divinity offends my working class sensibilities. If you’re sweating you should be getting paid. I gathered from the office that the “institutional culture” is a mixture of ex military and ex con. A group of guys was talking about their softball league. I felt a little egg-headed, but I could adapt.

bell hooks (intentionally lower case) has written at length about how your class background affects your innate sense of possibility. That’s true for me in that I have a hard time imagining myself as anything other than a teacher like my father or a laborer like my extended relation.

It took me an hour to find their little industrial park grotto and another hour to fill out their seven-page application (with yet another math test) only to discover at the conclusion of this escapade that they’ve closed the office that was only two miles from my house to consolidate their operations. This means that the drive to work everyday would seriously eat into my wage. We’ll call this a province of last resort.

Karen did talk with the owner of a bar just blocks from here that I had applied to last week (she used to work there) and he is supposedly calling me tomorrow. Mary thinks I might end up GED teaching in the AM and waiting tables/bar tending at night. I could live with that for a bit until I figure things out. This bar is all jazz and longhairs without a softball team in sight, more my stereotypical scene.

My current reasoning is as follows – get financial aid – get into UMSL – get summer job – get teaching career restarted – they have a summer program for people with existing Master’s degrees such that I could have rapid certification (I am waiting to hear back from Jane in the education department). This could all change on a dime because I am like that, but at least we have a plan of action for the short term. There’s still the KC job out there in limbo and there are a few other “sales” positions of a white-collar nature that I’ve applied for. I’m retooling my cover letter this afternoon to try for a few more of those kinds of jobs with area publishers.

BOOM – Jane just called back and fast-talked me through to my future. I am meeting with her tomorrow to begin enrollment in the fast track certification program towards a second Masters degree in education though UMSL, courses start mid May so this is now. I have to meet with three advisors to make this happen ASAP and I have appointments with two of them tomorrow. Carlo is going back to school.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home