I met with the town planner Friday, and now am scared off that position. I could get into the details, but it makes me ache with deep sorrow for humanity. All I will share is the most winning detail: During the hour I spent in the planning office, the paperwork for two lawsuits against the planning dept. was delivered. Two.
New plan: Teaching ESL! We'll see how long this idea lasts. For what it's worth, my dad thinks it's a good one.
Oh and PS: Got a promotion at Day Job. Ironic? Or merely "Alanis ironic"?
Arizonans Know BS When They See It
1 year ago
3 comments:
Neither; congrats on the promotion, regardless of what you're planning!
And I'm going to keep noodging you to go talk to some mediation-type people, either labor or family services or whatever, because I think it pushes so many of your buttons, in good ways. Actual problem-solving; helping people find solutions in a non-violent way; short-term problems (but of a more interesting variety than the get a book out kind); a certain amount of organizing and managing, but not exclusively that; avoiding lawsuits; and no little paper models.
What interests you about ESL? That seems kind of out of the blue, based on your previous commentary.
Thanks!
Re mediation: I'm not so in love with conflict. I would rather inspire people to do something cool that they mostly want to do already. Also: I did Google mediation, and it seems to be mostly a volunteer thing. But what do I know? I will look at it some more. Thanks for the nudge.
In brainstorming, I looked back at my college transcripts for any clues they might offer. It turns out I had misremembered things. I thought I had aced all my history classes and gotten B's in languages--but it turned out to be exactly the opposite. (And, I'd forgotten how many language classes I took. I took a semester of Latin, fancy that! Two semesters Portuguese, lots of ancient Greek, one semester of modern Greek. Then there's my extracurricular picking-up-of bits of Spanish and Italian.)
Anyway, I adore conversing with people, getting past language barriers. I'm not advanced enough in any foreign language to make a career of that--ya gotta be a native speaker--but I do know English pretty well.
And, teaching community ed classes has made me realize that I really like teaching engaged adults. No, I did not like substitute teaching, but that is an entirely different beast.
Well, and I'm not really going to keep noodging you--because I LOVE when someone does that to me--but it does seem to feature a lot of the things you like.
Don't stress about this all too much, though. It's not as thought there's One Perfect Career out there. I mean, there sort of was, for me (if anyone should have been a professor, it's me), but I couldn't actually get a job doing it. I'm always a little annoyed by the Follow Your Bliss people; some of us have multiple sources of bliss, and sometimes things just don't work out, and what price is a given person willing to pay for said bliss all fold into it.
Post a Comment