Day 22: Monday, 1 January 2007

Last night I dreamed I was fired from DODDS. I was nearly hysterical in my dream -- very, very afraid of what the future would hold. I held all of the conversations in my dream that I have already had in the past 22 days.  About the only new aspect was a scene where I was pulling pathetically on Mr. Sennett's pant's leg, begging him to change his mind, while he kicked himself free of me.  Then, in my dream I woke up and was so incredibly relieved to find it was a dream....

And then I woke up for real. New Year's Day.  It is raining. That seems totally appropriate. I wonder how long it will take to get past this sense of "this can't be happening." I suppose, as the old wisdom goes, time heals all.

I had just started work on my Ph.D. in Education. The emphasis is in Organizational Leadership with an endorsement in Psychology. There is an irony in my selected field of study, isn't there?  The very first paper I wrote in my first Ph.D class introduced Mr. Werner and his management style, which I couched in general terms as being somewhat indiscriminate concerning the approach he uses whether he is speaking to a student or a teacher. But Mr. Werner is not what I want to write about today.

I have six months of unemployment insurance ahead of me -- that will get me to June or July.  Not exactly a great time for a teacher to find work that will start paying immediately. I need to decide if I should jump into a new setting, new school, new dynamic and charge ahead like this is all just part of last night's bad dream -- or if I should sit back for a bit.  I could really knock out some semester hours in my degree program in a six month block. That might be more healing than meeting and dealing with new administrative personalities. My psyche has taken a bit of a beating in this and I have always found that formally studying my own issues and behaviors gives me greater clarity about what is motivating me and what is less helpful in my thoughts and actions. It is a good practice in objectivity I think.  Though it is hard to judge one's own success there! That would not be objective after all.

Of course, if I don't start work, then June and July will arrive anyway and I still won't have an income. But that's a good time to start spreading the search net out and with another 12 or 15 credits added to my transcript and the class content added to my brain, perhaps I'll be able to read the organizational leadership of the next administration a little better than I did this one -- though deceptive behavior is harder to read in people well practiced in it.

There is a doctoral internship possibility here in Europe that I have applied to. If the fair winds of fortune fill the sails just right, perhaps I'll be back in the neighborhood by that same problematic June/July time frame. Wouldn't that be cool?!

Time is running out here right now though. Even as I look for some hopeful signs in the New Year, I realize I am flying out next week.  That mirrors what this whole event has been about.  I get fired, I leave, and what happened is forgotten.  That's the easiest thing to do.  The seniors who are being gyped out of their AP credit will graduate in a few short months and they'll be gone and their loss forgotten too.  The parents who are demanding answers will continue to be stiff-armed with silence and eventually they will PCS or their kids will graduate and the issue, again, falls into silence.  It is the nature of our transient beast. I suppose some people will suggest that I and others not bother with petitioning for fairness, correcting gross injustices, and trying to fight the wrongs in the world.  That would be easier. With a New Year comes new options. What is the right thing to do? Is that different from the best action? At what point does fighting the power-base become just an exercise in self-destruction? I don't know. Gonna' think about it some though.

regards,

Storey

the never ending...