teacherJOB fair = insanity = promising future.

SO. i was a good desperately-seeking-job teacher and went to the job fairs. apparently this is THE thing to do in teacher world. so i geared myself up with much ammo and went into it armed with anything to woo these administrators and representatives of the schools. want the whole vision?
THE LOOK: (cause that is one of the first questions people have been asking me "what did you wear?!")
all black...black pencil skirt with pleats at the bottom, black square-neck elbow sleeve sweater.
and a touch of yellow...my mustard shoes (the 15 or so -not exaggerating- compliments on those yesterday had me practically skipping around these gyms...especially because there were so many high heels and they made my feet throb just looking at them, and i had no time for pain people).
and the du...cute trendy wavy curls that i love. i don't do it super often either so it feels fun when i do.
the bag on my shoulder was equipped with manila folders with resumes inside, with my fancy brochure hugging the outside (it was a hit...and i'm super surprised that i saw nothing else like it!). i always feel like teachers all think the same...but i was happily surprised about my little plug to make myself stand out.
i also lugged around in that bag my big black leather portfolio filled with the long version of me as a teacher. and i only took it out once to reveal my transcripts (violated!).

now that you can envision ME in this setting, would you like to know what I was a part of???
HOLY MOLY. first of all i went early to the first one. and all of you pisd-peeps I PARKED AT THE PISDbuilding! seriously people this is passed the small parking lot by the school, passed the stadium, passed the baseball fields, and passed the tennis courts. augh! i felt like i was on Fun with DICK&JANE (have you seen that movie?). that movie is hilarious by the way. BUT he is so excited to get called in for an interview, and in the parking garage he sees someone else dressed like him walking with a brief case and going the same direction. so they start to walk-race. and eventually they start running/really racing and finally they come running around the corner and there are a bajillion others already in line. THAT was me yesterday. i was in a line outside of the school to go into the GYM. and my second JOBfair was triple the number of people (bigger district). "hallelujah!" was all i thought all morning long as i handed those brochures with FOURpictures of my face in it. remember me! remember me! remember me! and as it turned out the yellow shoes helped, too. :)

the day started off in my cozy alma mauder, with the stars of the show (in my opinion) being a school that stole my heart back in student teaching. i had a sweet confirmation that if i worked out the logistics of the boy and the living situation, i would be really happy there. and after walking the L-shaped path through the booths, they were the 2administrators that stood with beautiful calming smiles, confidence, and appeared to have a clear succinct knowledge of what they were looking for. even standing in my other lines i admired them from afar. i was secretly really happy to know them.
once i transitioned to my final event of the morning i was only aware of the booths to steer clear of and only slightly confident in the must-go-to's (in terms of what I knew about the school). so i worked like crazy to make my rounds. let me just tell you, because of the number of people, if i wanted to go to a school's booth on the right side of the gym, I was standing in a line that stretched to the wall on the left side. all of the lines were interwoven into each other leaving everyone wondering which line was which...utter chaos.
finally, you would speak to either admin or a teacher representative (or both) and they would say "we don't have anything, but we'll be notifying as soon as any activity happens in our school." hmm. consistent and across the board: the economy, the influx of people (not just education majors) flooding the schools with an interest in teaching, the stagnant state that current contracts are in with teachers simply not stating their yes or no for 2009-2010school year, whatever the reasons for the mass of people I was/am up against them. (i almost felt like the news should have been there!)

all that said, i still feel good and confident. i still feel certain of a job (wherever that might be for next year). i still feel closer to the goal, and happy to be involved in the process. even in the chaos there was lots of talk of a 3rd district job fair taking place that morning that i wasn't aware of. like a sale of some sort i got anxious that i hadn't gone to it! i don't even want to teach there, so it was funny that for a second i was questioning my plan because i was so caught up in the rush of it all.
oh how happy i was to be done. detoxing from the adrenaline rush and processing all that took place. it was my first step to pounding the pavement and many people know i'm interested. now to see if anything comes of it!
happy happy job hunting! (it's officially re-begun)