What One Girl Knows

I'm writing this at the reception desk of Liz Claiborne's Menswear Department. On September 22nd, after panic attacks, vomiting between classes and clumps of hair falling out, I decided to quit the Teaching Fellows program. I'm convinced that I would have been able to stick out if only I had had 1) a classroom (or at least a few stable classrooms, instead of twelve plus classrooms that changed on any given day) and 2) the proper materials to teach the blasted America's Choice curriculum. Textbooks for the students would have been great, for example. These seem like relatively sensible requests from teachers, but apparently not in the city school system.

Also, I found that I don't like twelve year olds very much after all. Especially hundreds of fidgeting, screaming twelve year olds.

I don't mean to sound glib. Quitting the Fellows program was a very difficult decision to make. Veteran teachers told me that it takes at least three years to become a competent teacher, that it was normal for first-year teachers to go home and cry and feel like they're having nervous breakdowns. I liked the idea of making a difference at a city school, and I liked the stability of having a teaching job ... but in the end, it just wasn't the right career for me.

I'm thinking about going back to school for library science. Ironically, the library at IS 119 was the one place I felt comfortable in, and I know there'll be a high demand for school librarians in the near future. I love children's literature, so being a librarian seems ideal.

Jason and I will also be moving out of the city in the spring. New York City is great, but it's too damn expensive, and the amount of walking is making Jason's leg a lot worse. We also miss our families, and hope to move somewhere closer to both of them. And Piper misses having a yard.

The other big news is that Jason and I are getting married. While this is great news, the prospect of actually having to plan a wedding isn't. I've never liked weddings, never been the kind of girl who played wedding or knew exactly what she wanted in her dream wedding. I would like a white gold or platinum ring (I hate the way gold looks against my skin), but that's the extent of it. Venue? Catering? Flowers? Wedding gown? Guest list? Just the thought of all that planning makes me shudder. I don't actually have to do archaic things like choose a china pattern, do I?