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May. 13th, 2003 09:37 pmI actually wrote this last night but then, after already staying up way too late to write it, LJ stopped responding. I couldn't even load the main page. Talk about anticlimactic. Also, the clock on my machine is exactly twelve hours off and I don't have backdate turned on, so I'm actually posting this at 9:40am, 5/13 (Matrix in two days! W000t!) Anyway, here it is, albeit a bit late:
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So, where to begin?
I want to start making a habbit of posting each evening because it will be therapeutic for me and hopefully of interest to my friends. But then, I'm also tired (so what else is new?) and don't know how complete I'll be able to make this.
Two major events, I guess: an opera and a possible move.
First the move: A lot of you have probably heard something about this but rubicantoto and mlechan are probably the only ones who are really up to date about it, since they saw us last. As most of you know, Elizabeth did her graduation thesis on the subject of designing a progressive school for the gifted. The school laid out in her thesis was called the Reneissance Academy. Well, a couple of months ago, a woman in Florida emailed Elizabeth about the school that she was starting up, also called the Renaissance Academy. She was searching the net for to see if there were any conflicts with her chosen name when she came across Lizbeth's thesis. She was so impressed with the ideas therein that she offered her a job teaching math and doing curriculum development at the school!
Ego boost in 5-4-3-2-1...
Actually, we were initially not taking the offer very seriously. The first major disadvantage was that it was in Florida. I mean... Florida... America's wang... the only state that has its own category on fark.com... our new home? The second problem was that it was an alternative school, but not a school for the gifted per se and the third problem was that the owner wasn't sure that she could afford to hire Elizabeth. In fact, she's still not sure about it. Nonetheless, we are pretty much decided on going anyway for the following reasons:
1. While I've gotten a decent amount of career development done in the last few years, Elizabeth hasn't really had any major opportunities. Being involved in the startup of an independant school is a MAJOR contributor to future hireability for a teacher and when you have the owner of the school expressing interest in you instead of the other way around, that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Even if we're both doing menial jobs full-time and volunteering at the school until the it can afford to hire one or both of us (she also wants to do more computer stuff, but can't afford all those Windows licenses. Hmmm... =:) it would be worth it just to be attached to the project and get the experience.
2. Unlike California, we can afford to live in Florida for a lot less, or rather, we can live very nicely for the same amount we would pay to just get by in Ca. Example: $850, which is about $20 more than what we paid for one room in the two-bedroom, one bath apartment we split with Vrelis in Santa Cruz gets us a 1000+ square foot, two bedroom, two bath apartment with a balcony, pool and 24 hour, on-site gym. Schweet. Less fancy-schmancy 2bedroom apts start as low as $600/mo so you can guess what a studio would cost! ]
3. We've been unemployed or barely employed, living with Elizabeth's parents in San Diego for over eight months now. I love Elizabeth's family dearly, but it's about time we got out of here at all costs.
Elizabeth should be finding out about whether or not the school will be able to hire her soon. Meanwhile, I'm going to look into what it would take to become a substitute teacher. I passed the CBEST with flying colors (I also tied my shoes this morning all by myself!) and hopefully that will count for something. That would be nice because it would be decent money, I'd always be doing something different(ish) and it would leave room for me to bail for weeks at a time if I got any more good teaching gigs.
By the way, the biggest drawback that I can think of for going to Florida is that fact that we aren't going to know anybody there. I'm very happy to know that I have accumulated some really exceptional people as my friends along the way, but I also know that both Elizabeth and I tend to be more subject to social inertia then we'd like. Heck, half the people on my friends list I only know because Vrelis dragged them into our living room at some point. So if any of you folks know some friendly geeks in Florida, (specifically near New Port Ritchie in the Tampa area) please send them our way! By the way, another neat geekpoint for the move: The acronym for the town we'd be living in is NPR. Rock on.
So anyway, that's the move. I'm probably going to be flying out to Phoenix at some point in the (probably too) near future and I'm just going to have them make my return flight be for Tampa instead of SD. Then Lizbeth will drive out with the rest of our stuff and meet me there. I will, of course, keep everyone posted.
Second event: The opera. I'll make this one shorter for my own sake if not yours. The whole family has been sick lately, which is unfortunate because they (everyone but Lizbeth and I) also had tickets to see Madame Butterfly at the San Diego opera. Poor Catherine was coughing so badly and was so thrashed after a day at school that she couldn't make it, so we had a free ticket. I'm more of an opera fan than Lizbeth and she suggested that I take it, so I did. I've always really loved Puccini. The music lacks sublety, just the way I like it and he had a habit of teaming with librettists who ranged from pathos-obsessed to downright twisted. I won't try to summarize the plot and most of you know it anyway. But actually seeing it performed, I picked up on subleties and characterizations that the synopses I had read previously didn't provide.
By the way, and interesting pop-culture tie-in: Those unfamiliar with the names of some of the characters in this opera may be unaware of what an influence it was upon the creation of one of the best rock albums of the 90's. That is, Weezer's 'Pinkerton'. Pinkerton is the name of the tenor lead (who absolutely kicked ass in this production, btw) and, well, let's just say that the last track on the album (not-coincidentally called 'butterfly') is about a bazillion times more moving when one is familiar with the character. Seriously, even if you can't see the opera, if you are a fan of that album, find the libretto online and read it. I knew the basic story of Madame butterfly before, but the parallels go much deeper than I'd thought.
Ok, well that's enough for me now. I'm already up waaay later than I should be in order to get all the work I have to do done. Just one last thing. I have to take a second and say that Elizabeth rox0rz. She went through about 200 apartment listings, got all their information including distance from the school via mapblast and made a top-ten spreadsheet for us to work from. She's crazy in the most userful ways sometimes! =:)
Ok. That's all. I'm not even going to proofread. I'll just fix it tomorrow.
'nite!
----------------------------------
So, where to begin?
I want to start making a habbit of posting each evening because it will be therapeutic for me and hopefully of interest to my friends. But then, I'm also tired (so what else is new?) and don't know how complete I'll be able to make this.
Two major events, I guess: an opera and a possible move.
First the move: A lot of you have probably heard something about this but rubicantoto and mlechan are probably the only ones who are really up to date about it, since they saw us last. As most of you know, Elizabeth did her graduation thesis on the subject of designing a progressive school for the gifted. The school laid out in her thesis was called the Reneissance Academy. Well, a couple of months ago, a woman in Florida emailed Elizabeth about the school that she was starting up, also called the Renaissance Academy. She was searching the net for to see if there were any conflicts with her chosen name when she came across Lizbeth's thesis. She was so impressed with the ideas therein that she offered her a job teaching math and doing curriculum development at the school!
Ego boost in 5-4-3-2-1...
Actually, we were initially not taking the offer very seriously. The first major disadvantage was that it was in Florida. I mean... Florida... America's wang... the only state that has its own category on fark.com... our new home? The second problem was that it was an alternative school, but not a school for the gifted per se and the third problem was that the owner wasn't sure that she could afford to hire Elizabeth. In fact, she's still not sure about it. Nonetheless, we are pretty much decided on going anyway for the following reasons:
1. While I've gotten a decent amount of career development done in the last few years, Elizabeth hasn't really had any major opportunities. Being involved in the startup of an independant school is a MAJOR contributor to future hireability for a teacher and when you have the owner of the school expressing interest in you instead of the other way around, that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Even if we're both doing menial jobs full-time and volunteering at the school until the it can afford to hire one or both of us (she also wants to do more computer stuff, but can't afford all those Windows licenses. Hmmm... =:) it would be worth it just to be attached to the project and get the experience.
2. Unlike California, we can afford to live in Florida for a lot less, or rather, we can live very nicely for the same amount we would pay to just get by in Ca. Example: $850, which is about $20 more than what we paid for one room in the two-bedroom, one bath apartment we split with Vrelis in Santa Cruz gets us a 1000+ square foot, two bedroom, two bath apartment with a balcony, pool and 24 hour, on-site gym. Schweet. Less fancy-schmancy 2bedroom apts start as low as $600/mo so you can guess what a studio would cost! ]
3. We've been unemployed or barely employed, living with Elizabeth's parents in San Diego for over eight months now. I love Elizabeth's family dearly, but it's about time we got out of here at all costs.
Elizabeth should be finding out about whether or not the school will be able to hire her soon. Meanwhile, I'm going to look into what it would take to become a substitute teacher. I passed the CBEST with flying colors (I also tied my shoes this morning all by myself!) and hopefully that will count for something. That would be nice because it would be decent money, I'd always be doing something different(ish) and it would leave room for me to bail for weeks at a time if I got any more good teaching gigs.
By the way, the biggest drawback that I can think of for going to Florida is that fact that we aren't going to know anybody there. I'm very happy to know that I have accumulated some really exceptional people as my friends along the way, but I also know that both Elizabeth and I tend to be more subject to social inertia then we'd like. Heck, half the people on my friends list I only know because Vrelis dragged them into our living room at some point. So if any of you folks know some friendly geeks in Florida, (specifically near New Port Ritchie in the Tampa area) please send them our way! By the way, another neat geekpoint for the move: The acronym for the town we'd be living in is NPR. Rock on.
So anyway, that's the move. I'm probably going to be flying out to Phoenix at some point in the (probably too) near future and I'm just going to have them make my return flight be for Tampa instead of SD. Then Lizbeth will drive out with the rest of our stuff and meet me there. I will, of course, keep everyone posted.
Second event: The opera. I'll make this one shorter for my own sake if not yours. The whole family has been sick lately, which is unfortunate because they (everyone but Lizbeth and I) also had tickets to see Madame Butterfly at the San Diego opera. Poor Catherine was coughing so badly and was so thrashed after a day at school that she couldn't make it, so we had a free ticket. I'm more of an opera fan than Lizbeth and she suggested that I take it, so I did. I've always really loved Puccini. The music lacks sublety, just the way I like it and he had a habit of teaming with librettists who ranged from pathos-obsessed to downright twisted. I won't try to summarize the plot and most of you know it anyway. But actually seeing it performed, I picked up on subleties and characterizations that the synopses I had read previously didn't provide.
By the way, and interesting pop-culture tie-in: Those unfamiliar with the names of some of the characters in this opera may be unaware of what an influence it was upon the creation of one of the best rock albums of the 90's. That is, Weezer's 'Pinkerton'. Pinkerton is the name of the tenor lead (who absolutely kicked ass in this production, btw) and, well, let's just say that the last track on the album (not-coincidentally called 'butterfly') is about a bazillion times more moving when one is familiar with the character. Seriously, even if you can't see the opera, if you are a fan of that album, find the libretto online and read it. I knew the basic story of Madame butterfly before, but the parallels go much deeper than I'd thought.
Ok, well that's enough for me now. I'm already up waaay later than I should be in order to get all the work I have to do done. Just one last thing. I have to take a second and say that Elizabeth rox0rz. She went through about 200 apartment listings, got all their information including distance from the school via mapblast and made a top-ten spreadsheet for us to work from. She's crazy in the most userful ways sometimes! =:)
Ok. That's all. I'm not even going to proofread. I'll just fix it tomorrow.
'nite!
