Easiest Start to Teaching Career Ever

My official start date was last Tuesday because last Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The kids didn't come to school until Thursday. I guess they give them some extra time off between quarters. I was supposed to work 8-3 Tuesday and then go to first year teacher training from 3:30-8. I went to training and they said we would leave by 5 because there was a chance of snow. We also had a two hour delay the next day. I went to work at 10 the next morning. Thursday was my first day with the students and then I had training that got out at about 6:30 instead of 8. It was 68° on Monday. By 3:30 that day, I got a text saying we were closed Tuesday and Wednesday because it was supposed to snow. It didn't start snowing until Tuesday night. I was supposed to have training Tuesday night but didn't. At 1:30 Wednesday, I got a text saying that there was no school on Thursday. It had been done snowing since early Wednesday morning. I was also supposed to have training Thursday. It snowed a total of about 3 inches. Then I found out Thursday that the kids didn't have school today and the teachers had a two hour delay. I worked from about 10-1:15 and then left. In 9 school days, I worked with the students a total of three days! Although the first week was very busy and tiring, I could not have asked for an easier start to my teaching career. Of course we will have to make those four days up sometime soon. I will worry about that when it happens. This was not the start I envisioned when I dreamed of being a teacher. Part of being a teacher is showing extreme flexibility because everything is very unpredictable.

Suction Cup

Every GPS comes with a suction cup. You are supposed to put it against your windshield. The day before I drove to North Carolina, I tested the GPS and tried to put the suction cup against the wind shield. It did not work at all. I would put it on, it would stick for 5 seconds, then it would fall off. I decided to not even try it for my long drive. I ended up putting it in my cup holder next to me the entire drive. Whenever I needed to hear what Jill was telling me, I would pick her up and take a look at her. I know that I'm not supposed to do that, but oh well. It works for me. I continue to do that as I use Jill all of the time while trying to figure out how to get from place to place.

DMV

I went to the local DMV yesterday. That was the first time I went to a DMV in many years. It was the stereotypical DMV. It was very crowded. I went to the front desk and told her I needed a North Carolina license. She gave me a number and I sat in a seat and waited with about 20 other people. I waited about 45 minutes. The lady asked me all of the usual info and she typed it into the computer. Then I had to take a test online. It had 25 questions. If I got 6 wrong, I would fail. The cool part was that it told me right away if I got it right or wrong. Unfortunately, I got 6 wrong by question 19. The questions asked me about statistics of alcohol related deaths and stuff like that. How am I supposed to know that? She said I had to come back another day to try again because I could only try once a day. I was going to go back today, but they were closed because of the 3 inches of snow. I have another snow day tomorrow so hopefully DMV will be open so I can take and hopefully pass the test tomorrow. The good thing about them telling me I got the questions wrong was that they gave me the correct answers. I hope they ask the same questions when I take it again.

1,000

I hit a huge milestone today. Not counting free book giveaways and people who have borrowed my book using Amazon Prime, I have sold 1,000 books! I started selling in July 2012. That means I have sold 1,000 books in a year and a half. I'm selling almost 2 books a day! I didn't think I'd get to 1,000 this quickly. After November, I was at 700 something. I figured I'd get to 1,000 in April or May. Then, all of a sudden, December and January have been amazing months. I sold 148 last month and I'm over 150 this month. I have no idea where it came from but I'm not complaining. For being a self-published author who hasn't done any advertising, selling 1,000 books in less than 2 years is just incredible in my opinion!

Snow Days

Today was 68° in Fayetteville. When I got home from work, I checked my phone. I got a text from my principal saying that we do not have school tomorrow or Wednesday! I guess we are supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow starting sometime tomorrow afternoon through Wednesday. Only 3-5 inches and they already cancelled school! I don't think we have had one snow day in New York this year and we had a ton of snow. I've only been here one week and we have already had a 2 hour delay because there was a chance of snow (which never came) and two snow days well before the snow started! I've heard people say that when there is a chance of snow in the south, everyone freaks out. Now I am seeing it first hand! I will enjoy doing nothing the next 2 days!

Inexpensive Furniture

There are many pros and cons to buying inexpensive furniture. I bought my dining room set, couch, bed, 2 dressers, a night stand, and a recliner that I unfortunately won't get until the end of April, from a furniture store. I bought a desk yesterday and a coffee table today from Wal Mart. I looked at coffee tables that were as much as $900. I don't think so! I bought a black one today (to match the rest of my furniture besides my couch) for just $20! The problem with that and the desk was that I had to put them together by myself. It took me 3 hours to put the desk together yesterday and 1 hour to put the table together today! It sometimes takes me a long time to figure out what the directions are saying even though they have pictures. That's why it takes me so long. My mom and I were up until midnight Tuesday night trying to put the TV stand together. We gave up and finished the next day. Cheap furniture does the job, but it requires lots of assembly. Furniture from a real furniture store will cost a lot more, but someone else will deliver it and put it together for you. Although I hated putting my desk and table together, I definitely made the right choice and saved a lot of money by buying them from Wal Mart and putting them together myself.

Traffic Lights

I need to be more patient. Traffic lights in North Carolina take forever! I really need to get out my phone and set the timer the moment I hit a red light. I swear I sit at some lights for 3-4 minutes. I'm sure it just seems longer than it really is because I've been moody and very tired lately. I definitely feel like I wait longer at these lights than I did in New York. It's tough for me to be patient since all of my drives to and from pretty much everywhere are over 30 minutes. Besides the stores, everything else I need to go to is very spread out. I'm finally putting a lot of miles in my car. I've put 1,100 in it since Sunday. I'll be putting in at least 200 every week from now on. That's much different than the 30 I'm used to doing a week!

Speed Bumps

I am not a fan of speed bumps. They slow me down. I know that's the point of them. I don't think it's good for a car to keep running over them. When I took a look at the first place I was considering living at, it was at the back of the development I'm in now. I'm not kidding you when I say that I drove over about 15 speed bumps to get there. Now I have to drive over 3 speed bumps to get to my condo. I guess I don't really have a choice in the matter!

Break

I apologize for the break in posts. As most of you know, I moved into my new condo in North Carolina on Monday. It's been a whirlwind since then. I haven't had time to breathe. I was lucky to get out of my training at 6:40 tonight instead of 8. I have taken it really easy tonight even though I have a ton of things to do. My weekend plans are to do some of the online paperwork I have to do for work and to do some more shopping for things I "need". I also have to get some things ready for next Monday with the kids. Today was my first day with them and their last teacher gave them a lot of jobs, like line leader, caboose, paper passer, snack passer, etc. I'm going to make out a list of those jobs and a list of their names so I make sure they all have a job and they rotate so each student has something to do. Lots to do with my new class!

Car Wash

One perk of buying my car was that the dealer was giving me free oil changes for five years. Unfortunately now that I'm moving, I won't have that anymore. When the oil change is finished, they give me a coupon for a free car wash. It's one of those car washes that you just drive your car into and the machines do the rest. It's awesome. It shockingly does a really good job. The only thing any automatic car wash is awful at is drying the car. I always bring a towel every time I get a car wash because I know that I'll have to dry the car. Naturally I got my car washed today and now it's snowing. The car wash was pointless. I know that after driving to North Carolina it wouldn't look like my car was washed anyway. At least I got some of the snow and salt off of it for a little bit. I won't have to deal with that problem very soon!

Talk to Text

I'm not sure exactly what this feature is called, but I'm going to call it text to talk. If you have an iPhone 5S, you know what I'm talking about. This feature allows you to talk into your phone and it will convert what you're saying to text. I am using this feature right now to write my blog. That's right, I am talking my blog. I very rarely write my blog in my cellphone because I prefer to write it on an actual computer. However, I feel like I should start "writing" my blog this way because it is so much easier to talk than right. The phone does a very good job of converting what you say into words correctly. However, it does make some mistakes. I always go back and edit my blogs anyway so it doesn't matter if I talk or type. It really doesn't take too much longer when I talk and then read instead of writing and then read. Maybe I will talk out my blogs more often because I find it so much easier.

Hugging

Everyone loves hugs, right? Since I'm leaving, when I see people for the last time, they want to hug me. That's normally no problem with me. I don't mind hugs. However, there always seems to be an awkward moment. Both of your hands are outstretched and you don't know which way the other person is going to go. Then there's that awkward moment where you move your hand above that person's hand and then they move it in front of your hand because they don't know which way you're going to go. Then you never know how long to hug the person. Do you pat them on the back or you just hug and then like go after a few seconds? It's quite the process. However, everyone enjoys a good hug and I look forward to hugging many people tomorrow as it is my last day at my school.

Prizes

There is a local sports store that has been trying to give away a $50 gift card for each playoff football game. No one has won it yet. You have to like their page on Facebook to enter in the contest. You have to guess the correct score of the game. It's nearly impossible to do. Someone suggested that they take all of the entrants that have the winning team and draw a winner for a $10 gift card. They did that and I won the gift card! I went to the store yesterday to get my prize and buy something. A store like this has the usual shirts, hoodies, and jerseys. It also has ridiculously overpriced novelty items that no one needs. I found a nice Dallas polo shirt I liked, but didn't want to spend a lot of money. I ended up buying a fat head of a Dallas Cowboys player. After my $10 off, I paid like $6. Not bad. Now I will have some sort of decoration for my new room! On the same day, I found out I won another prize. If you liked and shared a photo for TCBY, you were entered to win a 6 pack of ice cream sandwiches. They drew my name. I went to pick that up and found out a 6 pack is $12! That's a lot of money for 6 ice cream sandwiches. Winning stuff, especially through Facebook giveaways is pretty sweet!

Pot Holes

Another annoying thing about winter is the pot holes. I think the combination of snow and salt on the roads is what creates pot holes. Some pot holes in my town are probably 6 inches deep. That doesn't sound deep, but when your car hits it going a fast speed, it's not good! Pot holes are hard to avoid when you're driving. If you swerve into the other lane, more than likely other cars are coming at you. You might hit them. No matter what speed you hit a pot hole at, it's not good. I'm looking forward to driving down south because there are not many pot holes.

Colors

Did you know our brain only allows us to see colors we want to see? In other words, most of the colors we see aren't that color. Our brain is telling us to see it that way. Makes sense, right? No it doesn't. I just watched Brain Games and that's what the guy was talking about. A green leaf isn't really a green leaf. It's every other color. It's because of the way it reflects to our eyes that it shows up green. People who are color blind only see shades of gray and green. We don't see the same colors they see. It's very interesting and very confusing and my brain hurts from all of the scientific terms the guy on the show used.

Alone

Now that my brothers live away from home, whenever my parents go on their annual cruise, I am home alone. I used to always love to be home alone because it rarely ever happened. Now whenever I'm home alone, for lack of a better term, I get lonely. I need to get used to it in a hurry because in one week and one day I will be living in my own condo alone. My mom will be there the first two nights, but after that, I'll be all alone! Just having another body in the house is comforting to me. I won't even have that. I see a lot of TV watching in my future to keep me occupied.

Phone Calls

Today was the day I made a ton of phone calls. I had to call several places to tell them of my address change. One of the places was DMV to figure out how to get new license plates. Of course they are only open Monday through Friday. I called 4 different insurance companies about renters insurance. They all said exactly the same thing. "What is a convenient number I can reach you at in case we get disconnected." I found that funny. Then one of the ladies from a company asked me if New York was really as glamorous as she has seen on TV. I'm glad she was being professional. I got a lot of work done today. I still have a few more companies to call or switch things online tomorrow. Then there are four places I have to call on Monday since they are open on weekdays only. Slowly but surely, things are getting done!

Success

I went to North Carolina on Monday and Tuesday. The goal was to find a place to live, buy furniture, and open a bank account. I did a lot of online research for apartments, townhouses, and condos before hand. I decided that an townhouse or condo would be best for me because I could get so much more for the exact same price as an apartment. I made appointments to see three different places. My mom and I thought I was going to get the first place. Then we walked inside. The carpet was ripped up, paint was peeling, there was a screen missing from a window, the place was disgusting. We went to the 2nd place and it was pretty decent. We waited for someone to meet us for the 3rd place and no one showed up. there was some sort of miscommunication somewhere. Needless to say, we weren't happy. I ended up with place two and got my rent lowered a little bit because of some minor issues in the place. I then bought a dining room table, bed, two dressers, a night stand, love seat, and a chair. I unfortunately won't get the most comfortable chair ever until the end of April because it was sold out. Oh well. I also signed up for a new bank. We were definitely successful in the very short time we were there. Now it's time to change my address for everything and change many other things before I move down south!

Jill

I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing Jill is. I don't know where I'd be without her, literally. She is always there to guide me and show me the way. I would not have survived Monday and Tuesday in North Carolina without her. That's right, Jill is my GPS. Why did I name her Jill? I have no idea. The name just seemed to fit. I am terrible at directions to begin with. Now throw me somewhere I've only been to once for a few hours and forget it! I had to have a GPS. It was the best purchase I have made in a very long time. I will be asking Jill to help me get from place to place for a long time once I move down in a little over a week. Jill is my new best friend.

Just a Few Things to Do

My mom and I are flying down to North Carolina tomorrow and coming home late Tuesday. Our flight leaves at around 6:20AM tomorrow and we should get there around 11. We will get home around 10:30 Tuesday night. We just have a few small things to do when we get there. We are visiting two or three townhouses/condos. They are about the same price as an apartment but there are a lot bigger. That's why we are looking at them. Once I sign for one of the places, we then have to shop for furniture. We will probably shop for (and hopefully buy) furniture Tuesday as well. I also need to go to the bank and sign up for a bank account. We will probably do a little bit of exploring if we have time. I just hope everything goes well. Wish us luck!

Computer Dead

My mom bought the newest Macbook Pro 2 months ago. Today, it wouldn't turn on. It was plugged in with the green light saying that it was charged. I'm a computer aide, yet my mom is much better with computers than I am. I am positive she wasn't doing anything wrong or missing something. She went to the Apple Store today and apparently the motherboard just stopped working. That's why I always tell my students to save their work all of the time while typing because you never know when something could happen and all of your work is gone. I got to thinking, what if that happened to me? I have my book on the computer. I also have it on a flash drive and an external hard drive. By the way, none of my mom's work will be lost. They aren't touching the hard drive. That's a good thing. However, if that happened to my computer and I didn't have my book on a flash drive or external hard drive, I'd be devastated. My months of hard work would have gone down the drain. That's why it's important to have back up of the backup of the backup to the backup by the backup. But seriously, it's important to back up documents and other things that you know you will need again because you never know when your computer won't turn on!

Infomercials

How many of you watch infomercials? Everyone does at one point or another. How many of you buy the product they are trying to sell to you? They make it so tempting. They try to sell every product exactly the same way. "You can buy this product for $29.95 plus shipping and handling. But wait, if you call within the next 36 seconds, we will double your order for free! You just pay another shipping and handling fee. That's not all, we will also include the handy dandy cook book at no price. A $100 value, for just $29.95." No matter what the product is, they always offer you a second of that product. Why do I need two? I don't want to give it away as a gift. What's the catch? I always wonder that. It probably takes 8 months to ship. Naturally it never works as easily as they make it look on TV. I have never ordered one of those products even though some look really cool and useful. Maybe one day I will just to see how it works. I will only do that if they triple my order and give me more bonus products for free. Gotta love infomercials!

Begin...The Rest is Easy

The day after I told my staff at the school that I was leaving, I was in the faculty room. One of the teachers gave me a fortune cookie. The cookie was unopened. I opened it up and read the fortune inside. We all know that the fortunes in fortune cookies are ridiculous. However, sometimes they relate to your life. Some people come into my dad's store and play the numbers on the back of the fortune. Strange, but whatever. Any number you play isn't going to come out anyway. I opened the fortune and it said, "Begin...the rest is easy." How perfect is that? I know I'm a fiction writer, but I can't make that up. I am very excited for the move to be over with. It's stressful making sure I find a place to live, everything gets switched over to my new address, I get all of the furniture I want, etc. etc. etc. I'll be much happier once I'm settled into my new place in North Carolina and  have a routine at the school. Life will be good. So I am about to begin my new journey. The rest will be easy!

Review of Last Years' Resolutions

I know I talked about some of my resolutions yesterday. Today I'll discuss in more detail if I reached the 10 resolutions I made in 2013. I felt like I made these a few short days ago. Time sure does fly.

-I will publish book #3 by continuing to work on it more often than I did last year.

I published that in February.

-I will get a teaching job by applying, applying, applying, and more applying.

As you are well aware of, I finally got that teaching job. I waited until December 11 to get it. I applied a lot more often than I did in 2012 and went to several job fairs. I really fought for this job!

-I will eat smaller portions at dinner and fewer desserts at night by exercising serious will power and having less junk in the house. 

Not going to lie. This absolutely did not happen. I did not eat smaller portions and I did not eat fewer desserts. I can't help it. I love food!

-I will be more productive at night after work by reading and writing more instead of sitting at the computer and/or watching TV.

At times I was good and at other times I was not. My most productive month was November because of NaNoWriMo.

-I will go to the gym more than two times a week.  No more excuses!

As I said yesterday, besides the summer, I was really good with this. I hope that where I live in North Carolina has a gym so that I can continue my routine there.

-I will be more positive about my future and stop saying, “I’ll have a teaching job 10 years from now” sarcastically.

For the most part I did better with this, but I still had my negative comments.

-I will go on all three vacations I have in mind and not worry about how much they will cost.  I will worry about how much fun they will be!

I went on two of the three vacations and didn't worry too much about the money. As you know, I also went to North Carolina in June to look for a job and to North Carolina spontaneously on December 11.

-I will put X dollars into my retirement fund by budgeting the money I make. ( I know what the X amount is.  I just don't want to reveal that amount in public).

I put that money in retirement in I think March. I hope to add the same amount this year. It might be more challenging to do though because I will now have a lot more expenses that I didn't have in 2013.

-I will find a publisher to take my book(s) by continuing to send out query letters.

I didn't work on query letters at all. Finding a publisher is harder than finding a teaching job. I'm selling my books very well and am completely content with being self-published.

-I will pay it forward to less fortunate people instead of buying myself something I do not need.

I was good at this at the beginning of the year and then I kind of just stopped. Shame on me!

 

This year, I just plan to make good choices, whatever they may be. I know that that is very general. I really don't have any or want any resolutions this year. I'm going to live my life one day at a time.