Diary of a Wom'n

I got a letter from the TDSB to say that I'm on the eligible to hire list. Not too shabby. Let's wait till May or June to see what happens with the job offers.

Not much has happened since the last time I was here, I can cross out some things from the to do list I made below. Some still need to be done.

My class for the special ed. has started. It's not too hard but time consuming I'd say. I have to do more readings than I'd like to, more assignments than I care for but hopefully when this is all over and done with, I'll be more marketable. We'll see. I know for a damn sure that I'm not going into special ed in the long run. I'll go into esl perhaps but not special ed. I have to work with those I can relate to or who can understand me or who are not so completely incapable.

My Norfolk friend is in a funk right now. I know the feeling.

GW

Do they ever with me lately! Like my dictionary, my pencil case, my watch, my pants.

My pencil case was the first thing to go this year. I had it since high school. It was sleek, small yet held all my essentials. Then my dictionary started spitting out pages after pages from the seam. It's an ancient dictionary, I had this coming. It's all I have for now until I buy a new one. My students struggle flipping through it and picking up fallen pages on the floor at the same time. Then the seam of my pants have been coming undone. It's not just one but two pants this has happened to and twice on one pants. I have to keep mending them, I'm so tired of it. It's a perpetual task. The last thing was my watch. It's a funny thing, watches don't last more than 4 or 5 months with me. I don't know what's going on. So I'm back to having no watch and constantly looking at my phone clock or searching for a wall clock somewhere. It's so annoying.

I'm starting my course tomorrow. I have my books and a clean binder to use. I have to get organized tonight. I have so much to do, I think I'm going to make a quick list:

Week of April 23:

1. email HBN on Monday night
2. organize special ed binder and create course calendar on Monday night
3. read chapter 1 and 3 from Weber on Monday night
4. participate in course on Tuesday morning
5. pick up library books on Tuesday morning
6. return watch to store on Wednesday morning
7. pay visa bill by Wednesday night
8. wash hair on Thursday night
9. have all corrections done by Friday night
10. straighten hair on Friday morning
11. buy mother's day present on Friday morning

Doesn't look like much but if you account for the fact that I really only have 1 or 2 hours of spare time everyday, it's a heck of a lot.

The TDSB board called my employer last Monday I think it was for a reference check up. I was a little alarmed at how late this occurred but relieved because it was some tiny indication that there is an incling of a chance that I might be on the list and then back to alarmed because I was afraid that my employer might have been unwilling to give them a rave review of me in an attempt to prevent me from leaving and continue working for him. We'll just have to wait and see.

GW

Yesterday morning I woke up early to go to the Robarts library to pick up two books for the aq course I'm taking at OISE. I also took care of an errand for my dad.

I know it's probably just me but downtown Toronto isn't like it used to be. In one sense, the homeless seem to be getting younger, look like they are capable of working, and not badly dressed if I might add. Has it become some kind of fashionable occupation to shamelessly panhandle on the streets instead of pulling yourself by the socks and make the best out of a minimum wage job? Is that it? To be homeless is the be in fashion?

One young woman was standing on an intersection and repeating rehearsed lines "Can you spare some change? Help a lady out?" while holding a tin can of some sort.

Another young woman stood at the bottom of the subway escalators doing the same thing. It's all very peculiar. I used to dream about living in downtown but now I wouldn't dream of it. I think I would stay here in the suburbs of Toronto. I would travel but I wouldn't move to live somewhere else permanently.

I just browsed through some other people's blogs and it's highly interesting to see the differences in people's concerns and what they find important or not important.

Well, I've got a ton of work and so little time. Ciao for now

GW

My strangely alluring friend (he doesn't know we're friends) who's also on blogspot just announced that he's on the tdsb eligible to hire list. I'm happy for him. I wonder how he mustered up all that patience for waiting. My interview was about two weeks after his and all this waiting is making me lose it. I'm pissed on so many levels, mostly because I can't stomach the way the board has trivialized our career in this way. How can they gauge our capability as teachers in just one interview -- an interview that determines whether you will be allowed to work in Toronto schools or not for the entire year? Is this not bullshit? How come the other career fields don't have this kind of bureaucratic procedure?

I feel like I've been thrown in jail and waiting to hear what I did wrong. In the mean time, I look out the barred window watching other people go to their perfect jobs.

I wish I was more cool about this than I am at the moment. I don't handle these kinds of things very well. If it doesn't work out, I think I'm going to seriously consider working for the Durham and Peel boards. I'll also give it a shot with the York board. What do I have to lose at this point, really? Not dignity nor sanity nor hope because they're shot to hell.

This morning I had a hell of a time getting out of bed. I've been so bloody exhausted lately. I don't know how long I can continue working for next to nothing at this teaching center. It's a nice place with nice people but nice can't pay off my osap, it won't pay for my bills and it won't pay for my independence, I can tell you that.

Things were supposed to get easier after highschool. That's what I used to say as I flipped through teen magazines, skipped along town with friends and fashionable clothes. How wrong I was.

GW

I was tempted to title this post, seconds but I won't be corny today.

Have you ever thought of someone that you once knew and couldn't bear and wondered what it was about that person that you couldn't bear and then you see them somewhere and you remember just exactly what it was that you hated? Isn't it funny how our conscious sometimes erases the ugliness in our life? It didn't happen with this bi*tch that I bumped into yesterday. She was with her husband. I can't stand her and what makes me more angry is I can't even pinpoint exactly what it is about her that I hate. It's a series of things: her on-off friendship with me, her empty smile, her insincerity. I particularly disdain the way everything has come so easily for her and the way she acts as if it hadn't. I hate her wedding, her husband, her new job, her new house, her new life, her perfect family--I want to puke. I can't bring myself to be happy for her for the life of me. I shouldn't have went to her bloody wedding.

I need to be less resentful, seriously. I might turn into a bitter old woman. But better bitter than a bi*tch, I suppose.


GW

My first blog.
So it's finally come to this.
This will be my escape from the mundane tasks I have to do on the computer.
I will write again, needless to say.

GW