They say you can never go home again

I have been meaning to blog for awhile now, but I have actually been busy and when not actually busy I have been goofing off. Seems to me to be a healthier diet than I was consuming before which was about 100% goofing off.

The Employment Scene

Let’s see I’ve been back teaching for about three weeks now. Hard to believe that’s it’s already been three weeks. At first i was somewhat upset about being back at a job that i did 7 years ago, my tune has changed greatly. I’m remembering how great it is to be in the classroom with students and how much of a tangible difference these classes can make in their lives. It’s not easy work given the nature of my students. They’re trying to fit ESL classes into their already tight schedules and many have been intimidate by the process of learning English or have found that they can function without it. For me that translates to different students in the classroom each time I teach. It’s kind of hard to lesson plan when you don’t know who’s going to be in your class or how many people will show up. Luckily, this plays on my strengths of being pretty free form with the ability to change a plan on a dime. Some days it’s just prettier than others.
Teaching these classes means that I have two days completely off but it also means that I teach two evenings a week. We’re all still adjusting to the schedule.
What’s weird is that while I was working a 40-hour week job, I longed for something less rigid. My greatest days were the weeks that I was able to train. There was more flexibility. On many other days it felt like I was just showing up roll call so that I would be marked a present. Much of the work that I actually did on those days I could have done from anywhere and I probably would have been more productive. But there would never be any of “that tele-commuting” there. But of course there was the security of having a full-time job with lots great benefits and of getting a nice pay check every week. So, there’s that?!

Fall

I’ve been kind of obsessed with foliage this Fall. Well foliage and thinking about Storrs. It’s hard to believe that we moved back to Storrs for good 7 years ago. In some ways it was an easy decision to move back and in some ways it was a hard decision. When we first moved up to Vermont we thought this was the move, that we’d live in Vermont forever and that’s where our life as a family would begin and end. Well, a year later the reality was that Vermont’s economy had little to offer us so we would need to move. We looked for jobs in Boston and the Storrs area. Our thought was the first person to get a decent job would determine where we’d live. Problem was that neither of us had job by the time we needed to move. This is the point where stright up economics played a huge role in our decision. If we moved to Storrs, we could live with my parents while we found jobs. If we moved to Boston we’d be going into hoc to pay for rent etc. while we looked for jobs. We went with the financially wiser decision.

When we first moved back I struggled with my identity here in Storrs. This was the third time I’d come back and this was permanent move. I felt like I needed to justify or defend why I’d moved back. It was as if coming home to Storrs to live was some sort of defeat. As if I’d lost out there in the big wide world. Truth is that no one was saying these things to me, and it was just me wrestling with my own insecurities about moving back to Storrs. I’d had to wrestle the same feeling when I decided to attend UCONN. I remember talking with John Hodgson about it one day shortly after we’d moved back and him saying you’re not the same person and it’s not the same town. He was so right. I was not the same person and Storrs is not the same town to the me I am now.

In the end moving back to Storrs was one the best stumbled into decisions we ever made. For me, it’s really wonderful to drive the streets of my youth with a totally different perspective on the streets. I like living in a place I have so much history with. I love that my mom can run out and pick up the kids in an emergency. I love that the kids participate in some of the same activities that I did. I don’t always love running into people I’ve known at the grocery store, but it’s great to know it happens (too much really.) I love the look on people’s faces when they meet “Sarah Curtis” and then ask “Do I know you>” and I say “I’m Sarah Cook”. These are important things.

So with that said here’s some of the beauty of Storrs I’ve been enjoying this week.

Miscellany
I rarely drive by this Chucky’s let alone stop at it, but this week I got gas there. As I stood looking at the building, my thoughts went back to high school.

I think only M. Colyn and Jennie-Ho will understand specifically the night and why I was thinking about parties, booze, Bugles and parking lot puking.

So this pictures is dedicated to two really great friends.