As predicted, I did not get a sub job this week. I concentrated instead on the two things I needed to get done this week: An Adult Ed Bible Study and planning for our upcoming trip next week.

On Monday, I did get to go out to lunch with my old start-up company buddy. It was nice to see him after a year or so. He spent lunch not trying to convince me to resurrect the start-up, as he had done last year, but to try to convince me to join a city government because they needed program managers. His two brothers are now working for the city and county. On Tuesday, a different friend tried to get me to join his company as a consultant, also doing program management. Wow, I didn’t know that I stood out so much as a program manager. I’ve always done it as part of my management function, and I have the degree for it, but to me, it’s always been of secondary importance to chip design. Alas, these jobs are starting to look good because there are no teacher prospects so far, and my money is finally running out. To date, I have responded to nine high school positions and two college positions, but haven’t heard from any of them. The same thing happened last year. And yet, I have faith that I’ll wind up as a teacher somewhere next year, just maybe not at the school where I want to be.

On Friday, I got super ambitious. I got up early, climbed up on my roof, and washed my solar panels so they would produce electricity again. I nearly killed myself getting off the roof. I then helped my wife close up her classroom for the year by cleaning appliances and moving heavy things. When I got home, I decided to do a wood project. The project itself was easy and basic, but it required most of my bench tools which were both heavy and buried deep in a closet. The act of moving them alone got me tired. And then the pieces of acrylic I had cut (so… not entirely a wood project) somehow had the protective paper lining baked into the plastic so I spent about three hours soaking and scraping that off so I could see through the acrylic. While things were soaking, I took apart the kitchen sink drain, since it was leaking, applied plumber’s putty, and then reassembled it. This was not as trivial as it sounds, and I pretty much used my last ounce of energy to complete the job. I was sweating so bad, and got so dehydrated that I had to gulp down three glasses of water (and I didn’t pee for the rest of the day!). Just as I was finishing up the wood project, it was time to go to a graduation party. The party was fun, and lasted until bedtime, but I was beat.

Next morning, Barb and I had to get up super early because we had volunteered to set up food vendors for my high school’s graduation. It was the only way we could get into that graduation to see our students because we didn’t have a grad of our own and no one had invited us. This turned out to be a brilliant move. Not only did we have fun setting things up, but we were also ringside when the graduates walked out. We said “Hi” to several of them.

So… while I was out and about on campus looking for name tags, I ran across the principal. He told me that there was going to be a Social Studies teacher out on maternity leave for the first semester of next school year and that he was putting my name in as the guy to fill in, not as a long-term sub, but as a temporary employee. He was also hopeful that I would then continue on in a Social Studies/English capacity in semester #2 and become a permanent employee. Well this was certainly good news. The teacher still has to fill out the official documents, but he hopes that she will do it this weekend and then they can call me on Monday. It’s not a done deal, so I’m not going to jump up and down about it yet, but it sure sounds positive. I think the principal feels a little bad about me not getting that other Social Studies position. I truly feel that he “hid” the position for me for as long has he could, but then the district office found out about it and placed another guy (a friend of mine) without consulting him. He said that he didn’t want it to go down that way, but that this temp position would still get me in. He told me not to apply to other districts because this was a special school, he wanted to see me in this school, and that I would be much less happy elsewhere. I tend to believe that. I’m hoping to get a phone call on Monday.