New Year; or, Changes to Come

Hello, 2017!

source: https://www.instagram.com/p/-OdTxIsw46/?taken-by=the_real_iman

Tomorrow is the first day back to work in 2017 but I won't be there. Why not? Because I am spending a week in exotic Jacksonville, FL, waiting for my oldest son to go to college.

Because of the ridiculousness that is travel on/off GTMO, we have to come here for a solid week and stay in a hotel because he is traveling to college on a Thursday. The flights are Fridays and every-other Tuesday. If he were flying to college on a Saturday, we could just fly in on Friday and set him on his merry way the next day. However, we will still be waiting here an entire week for the return flight. And if Space A/UEML flights were guaranteed (that's technically what the "rotator" government flights are called), we would have just come on Tuesday of this week. But nooooo, things are complicated, nothing is ever guaranteed when it comes to the government, even a flight with orders, so we ended up staying a week because of the completely and utterly inconvenient flight schedule.

So what do you do for a week in a hotel? 

You catch up. My parents came to visit. I'm lucky that they are a (long) day's drive away and were able to visit a few days. We did a little eating out (choices! so many choices!). We did a little shopping. Some of it is for our son who will be moving to a country that has actual seasons, and after living in GTMO 4+ years, he needed a few colder winter clothes. The high is 49º the day he lands in Spain. The high the day we return to GTMO is 89º. 

This trip has also been a time to think ahead of the future. We met with my cousin and talked a lot about the future of the country post-election. My father gave his best fatherly advice to our son about succeeding in college, which he also gave me---and when I actually followed it, it worked. (The secret: do your homework the day you get the assignment, and read your notes EVERY DAY. Then you will barely have to study for big tests. Try it; it really works). 

We've talked about classes and possible jobs in Spain. We've talked a little about our youngest and his new role for the first time ever as the only kid at home. We are forward focused, and this also includes work. 

This year will be a year of change for me. I don't know if that means I will be doing a new job at my same location, or doing the same job at a different location, or doing a different job at a different location, but I am determined that next school year WILL be a different type of school year. On one hand, you can't make a year change for the better by sheer force of will; on the other, I am tired of waiting for change, because every additional year I am here, I feel more and more like I'm being run completely over. I have tried working the transfer system, and I am getting nowhere. There is being flexible, and there is learning a completely new curriculum you are told you are teaching the first day of school. There is offering everything you can for kids in a small school, and there is taking hundreds of hours away from your own children at home. There is carrying your weight, and there is being crushed to death.

Changing with the times is one thing; Quixotic or last-minute change is another. Sometimes in a large organization (like, say, a school system run by the federal government), it's the later, not the former. Year five of an indefinite sentence, and I find myself feeling more inefficient and, frankly, unhappy as ever.

I will make things change. They WILL change. Even if I am stuck here for (god forbid) a sixth year, it WILL be a different year in 2017-2018. 

I am not quitting my job; however, if I am still here in GTMO next year, I am going to make it a different job. 

If you are reading this and thinking, how?, I don't have all the answers myself. After all, it's just January and I have until August to figure that out. 

But I do know this with upmost certainty---next year will be more efficient, I will doing something I want to do, and if it kills me, I will be happy. I refuse to be stuck; I am moving forward. There will be a method to the madness that is working in a small, isolated, limited resource school.  I am doing formal research and asking other teachers who work in similar locations how to do it all. And with the little I've done towards change so far, I do feel like my voice is being heard, even if things can't change immediately.

The inimitable Will Rogers said, "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." I am tired of feeling like I am being run over. I think I am on the right track, but I am no longer waiting for changes to come to me. I am working on making change happen.

Anyone feel like joining my one-woman, sort of cheesy, albeit really sincere revolution, the more the merrier---please come along. Bring your ideas and free yourself from the confines of beating your head on the wall because you've been doing things the same way every. single. year. And you know where to find me---it's not like I'm going anywhere any time soon. 😜