Bah.

So, I didn't get the job. I'm pretty disappointed. It was a long shot, but...eh. It feels like a bad omen. I started off my Baltimore job search by bombing an interview for a job I really wanted, and look what I wound up with. Yeah, it's a bad parallel, but I don't feel very rational about this.

I know that people get turned down all the time. I know that I will get a job somewhere, doing something. I know that I'm disappointed and stressed and focusing on the negatives. But I'm already swimming upstream. I'm an out of state teacher. MD has fucked up my certification, so I may not be able to GET NJ certification by application deadlines, meaning I can't apply for most jobs. I don't have time to go flitting around, attending interviews and open houses, like some college kid. I don't know the area. I don't know where I should and shouldn't be applying. I don't know HOW to apply to a suburban posting -- what are the key words? What are the desirable traits? How do I make a principal understand that my student example work, clearly done on a 6th grade level, is fucking OUTSTANDING for my school? It isn't going to happen. I'm not going to get a teaching job, and if I somehow miraculously do, it'll be at the New Jersey equivalent of I.B.E.

Fuck that. I cannot and will not do another year of this. Unfortunately...what the fuck else do I have? There's a job at the Educational Testing Service, but that's another giant reach. And I have such great luck with those.

Realistically, I'm probably going to wind up taking a part time or internship for a year and finding something else in the interim. What people outside of education don't seem to get is that there is a very limited window for hiring, and if you don't have everything lined up, you ARE NOT GOING TO BE HIRED. Period. End of story. Case closed. Since one of the major things is certification, which I can't even talk about because I am so furious, I'm pretty much fucked.

So, this afternoon, I'm calling the union withh a whole list of complaints about the general jackasery and lack of help. We'll see. But, right now? Yeah. Yeah, I think I know why we have such fucking trouble providing teachers. All the ones we DO have are busy trying to get their paperwork processed, their classrooms heated, their paychecks issued, or their benefits processed sometime before retirement.