I Don't Have Anything To Say

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I just haven't had anything to say. After the election there's not much room for political commentary, and I'm sick of it all anyway and glad it's over. I've got some things going on in my personal life but I believe they are of marginal interest to my blog readers, and I question the wisdom of airing my family's dirty laundry on the internet.

Favorite Husband has applied for a couple of jobs at a local company here in town, and it looks like he might have a good chance at getting at least one of them, because one of our friends works for that company and has recommended him highly. Unfortunately the one with the best chance would pay less than the job he's got now. We can afford for him to make a little less, because we wouldn't be spending so much money on gas, restaurant food, and chiropractor bills. But we can only go so far down before I'd have to go back to teaching at the university again. Fortunately, if he works here in town and gets off at 5, teaching at the university wouldn't be too bad. He could come home before I have to leave for work, and we could all have dinner together at an hour that the kids can tolerate. The kids would get to bed at a decent hour, instead of having to wait until I get home from my night class.

I really love teaching, but I just don't think I can do it any more until my kids are older. I routinely get four hours of sleep a night, and at that level of tiredness I can't teach effectively. And I absolutely hate grading papers.

I picked up a new tutoring job. I have a group of four high school girls. Their current math teacher is not explaining things well to them. They seem pretty well versed in all the prerequisite skills, which is nice because I hate having to do remediation. It's not that I hate teaching remedial material, it's that I can't stand watching the frustration it causes in students to have to re-learn stuff they should have known, and at the same time learn new stuff. The students who meet this challenge with determination tend to make progress, but sometimes even massive amounts of progress don't result in improved grades. It is really and truly painful to watch a student study harder than any other in their class, and still fail the course at the end. They had farther to go than anyone else and met the challenge with all their might, and still came up just a bit too short. If I don't keep students like that motivated, it could negate all the progress they've made, and make them feel like all their learning was in vain.

I will make a separate post about my latest projects.