Don't Fear the Reaper

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Recession, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Budget Cuts, and shun

The frumious Unemployment!"

---Adapted from Lewis Caroll's "The Jabberwocky"

Well, sooner or later, the Recession comes for all of us. This morning it came for me. The good news is I will not be asked to take on a before or after school yearbook program--which I was dreading. Yearbook is enough stress and work as a full class. The bad news is that I also will not be at my current school any longer. Despite my principal's best efforts not to cut math or English, and he's cut every single department so far, he is still one position too high. So he looked at cutting half a math and half an English, and the halves would do half time at another school. But split schedules like that are as stressful as most forms of torture, and the other schools actually need whole positions, not half. So, it looks like I'll be teaching at the next junior high over.

Given the current economic climate, and the budget cuts, I'm very grateful to be guaranteed a job in the district, and, as it is, this looks like the most workable transfer possible. I'm still a little bit in shock, and I'll be devastated to leave my school, my classroom, the yearbook I'm just barely learning how to run, the English curriculum I finally have worked out, the staff and administration whose names and quirks I know, and the school where I'm slowly building a reputation with the students. But, all things considered, I have much more to be thankful for than I do to grieve over. I have a steady, guaranteed, full-time job, benefits, and my new school will even be a mile closer to my new apartment.