Izulde's Grad School Quest: An RL Dynasty

[Young Drachma]

Good luck, man. I know the roller coaster this can be, but hopefully you're on the other side of it.

[chesapeake]

Good luck! I'm hoping it works out for you.

[lcjjdnh]

Good luck!

[Izulde]

Thanks, folks! Should be a week or two before I hear back - I'm one of three finalists, it turns out. So we'll see what happens.

[Izulde]

They've picked me!!! It'll be a 30-60 day trial period to start (which makes total sense for this position and industry), to transition to salaried with benefits afterwards, assuming all goes well on both sides. So, so excited! I start Monday at 9 am.

I'm not ashamed to say I broke down in happy tears after the call. It's been a long, tough road. 10 months. Hundreds of applications. A handful of interviews. But it finally happened, with a great company and a position that suits my strengths. I'll also be the first of my position at the company.

For any other FOFCers who read this in times of long unemployment, I can't stress enough the value of operating a side business while you're looking. It gives you some income and experience you can point to. And in my case, my side business was a major factor in my landing the job.

[Izulde]

So, approximately two years later, I left. I was exceptional at the job (I started breaking company metrics records after about two months and helped bring the website up to the top 1 million in Alexa rankings - key for HARO submissions), but no raise in those two years despite my success, the expense of Lyfting to and from work every day (~$600 a month) crippling my ability to save any money, and increasing mental health issues (to the point where I suspected a heart attack was imminent), it was time for a change of scenery.

I left in February. COVID hit. Mass applications to high school teaching positions ensued.

A few months later, old employers contacted me, wanting me to come back part-time, with the deal that I could work remotely. By this time I was almost out of money (see: Lyft eating my ability to save anything), so I took it. It's kept me afloat.

Mental health improved too, but it still waxes and wanes. Those of you who follow my Facebook know what utter vandalizing assgoblins I have for neighbors in this complex and what a completely useless sack of shit the HOA that I have to send $155 a month to is.

So, 14 different interviews for teaching positions to date - smashing the record of 3 the summer I was offered to teach in China before I spotted some real shadiness in the contract that would have bent me over, and where I finished second with a wonderful private school that still remains the single best interview I've had to date ever.

End result: 2 schools interested, but they're places where the curriculum is detailed down to the individual day. No room for deviation, no room for flexibility or, you know, actually adjusting to the individual class and student. So I noped out of them - with that type of militancy and restrictions, they're looking for vending machine bodies.

Every single interview has been with a low SES/trauma-informed school, which I honestly don't understand, and the complete opposite of that other hiring season, where one was an excellent Catholic school and the other was for high-achieving Chinese juniors and seniors with plans to study abroad in the US or England.

So right now, I'm a bit at sea. A lot of anger, a lot of frustration, a lot of realization just how alone I am in this city. Even my local friends - I ask if they can help me with stuff, they say sure, but when it gets down to brass tacks, it's one fucking excuse after another. Even shit friends do like hanging out, just once in a while I'd like them to offer to pick me up or come to my place. Nope. Too much effort for them.

Moving to a small town is looking more and more attractive by the day. I can be the resident quirky writer/educator. The problem them is to do that, I need a job landing spot and housing prices and situations that won't put me in the paycheck to paycheck scenario I've been in pretty much my entire working adult life.

Sure makes me wonder where the fuck I went wrong in life that I ended up how I have. I'll be bluntly honest - there's some nights when if I didn't have the dog and feel responsible for him, I probably would have checked out.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Sure makes me wonder where the fuck I went wrong in life that I ended up how I have. .

Free advice fwiw: That shit can make you crazy, so steer clear of it as best you can

And here's why I'm certain that's a bad place to spend your mental time: because you're not going to figure it out.

I know damned well I took a wrong turn en route to Albuquerque SOMEWHERE along my journey, but damned if I know where it was because the road has covered too many miles along the way, with too many twists and turns to remember them all much less know which one was THE one.

I have a few leading candidates but, honestly, it could have been a butterfly flapping its wings (or not) in Argentina when I was six years old for all I could say definitively.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Free advice fwiw: That shit can make you crazy, so steer clear of it as best you can

And here's why I'm certain that's a bad place to spend your mental time: because you're not going to figure it out.

I know damned well I took a wrong turn en route to Albuquerque SOMEWHERE along my journey, but damned if I know where it was because the road has covered too many miles along the way, with too many twists and turns to remember them all much less know which one was THE one.

I have a few leading candidates but, honestly, it could have been a butterfly flapping its wings (or not) in Argentina when I was six years old for all I could say definitively.

Agreed at all points, unfortunately - right down to the most likely suspects and cursed by the proverbial butterfly in some random location kick-starting the sequence of events.

[Izulde]

Funny how a month changes things.

Ended up with 15 or 16 different school interviews. School 15 was expecting to make a decision two weeks later after interviews of other candidates. They offered two days later. School 16 was very interested, and would have been a dream spot career-wise, but the timing was off - they wanted a second interview and that would have hosed things with School's 15 offer if they went another direction.

So School 15 offer was accepted, Board signed off on contract with no issues, and my cousin came to help me pack up and move. My old place will be on the market Wednesday officially most likely, and I'm going through the mortgage process on a house that was accepted in my new location.

Amusingly enough, said new location turned out to be precisely the type of small town I referenced in my previous rant. And in the two days I've been here, I've already experienced more kindness and caring from strangers than I did even my friends in 10 years in Vegas - let alone anyone else. The difference has been striking and in a good way.

I'm also back in my native state, which I swore I never would. But it's a different region than I've lived in previously, and it's a beautiful location. There's even a place to kayak within walking distance. And speaking of walking, I can literally walk just about everywhere in 20-30 minutes max, and a lot of the things/businesses I need are here.

My finances, once my house is sold, will be in better shape they've been at any point in my adult life. I'll be working two jobs that will net me more money than I've ever made, combined with an approximate $650-700 reduction in housing costs (far smaller mortgage and no damn HOA), and anywhere from $200-600 a month decline in Lyft fees, and I'll no longer be living paycheck to paycheck, but be able to save money and actually do things.

If there's a downside, it's that Magic places are 45 minutes-an hour away. (Hence the low end of the $200 Lyft reduction, if I Lyft somewhere to play every week). Then again, I might finally be able to get my license after failing the road test in Vegas twice, and then have money to get a car.

So I feel like this will be a good situation for me in many ways. And it hits way differently returning to the homeland after so many years away - if I'd done it earlier in life, I would have felt like a failure. Doing it now, and in the way it transpired, it was a conscious, purposeful choice and smart decision (so far). A lot of people have already commented privately that they feel like I made the right choice here and that small town life will agree with me.

Underrated aspect: I have a lot of family members within 2.5-3 hours' drive, so if something came up emergencywise, they could make the trek up a whole lot easier (the way up involves a lot of quiet traffic, two-lane roads). So there's a built-in support system within range - which for someone like me, who is painfully shy and socially awkward (in addition to severe hearing impairment), is a key deal.

There's a funny postscript involving a School 17 that I won't mention here, but those of you I'm linked up with on Facebook can ask me privately me about it.

[chesapeake]

Really sorry to see this, Izulde. I hope that you land on your feet. And if teaching is something that you really want to do, keep trying!

[Young Drachma]

Seconded, I hope the next stage offers some reward for your labors all this time. It's well deserved and overdue.

[Breeze]

Dude, I'm sorry to hear this...hopefully something better comes along to make this a blessing in disguise.

[Izulde]

Long story short, I wound up at a small private school teaching AP and other upper-division classes. In many respects, the best teaching year I've ever had (including 100% pass rate on the AP Lit exam!)

But I left because I wanted to do something other than teaching. Had conversations with bookstores around the country about buying a space. Those went nowhere after I dug deeper into the finances.

August rolled around and I missed being in a classroom, so I applied to a lot of different positions. Had numerous interviews and the tenor of the conversations has been a lot different than the last couple years - focused much more on classroom management and differentiation. Content-related questions have all disappeared (Lot of variation on the line "We know you're experienced and you know this material", which is something I haven't encountered before. Pretty cool).

But none of those positions has ultimately seemed right for me. Turned down a couple of very likely offers for fit - others, they went another direction.

Even applied to be an Olive Garden host of all things (great conversation, but with my hearing issues, I realized it was a no-go. And they were also willing to offer me a busser position, but the guaranteed pay wasn't worth it).

So, walking downtown the other day, I saw a few commercial properties for lease and became intrigued about the possibility of opening a bookstore here. I hadn't considered it much before, because we've a Barnes & Noble and a firmly entrenched independent bookstore (oldest in the state, in fact). But I had other people encouraging me to keep looking for a gap in the market I could fill.

Then this morning, it hit me. One thing neither store has is international specialization. I conceived of a concept of organizing books by continent/country for fiction, travel books, and history books, then came up with cross-selling/diversification lines of portable travel supplies and international snacks/chocolates (the latter a suggestion voiced by two different people). Then later on, looking at international wines as another cross-selling/diversification stream.

So I looked at one commercial property today and will look at a couple more tomorrow. Signed up to be an American Booksellers Association (ABA) provisional member for help in writing up my business plan. Started compiling a list of publishers/wholesale booksellers and international snacks/chocolates sellers (reaching out to one to inquire if they do wholesale at all).

I feel like this will offer enough of a difference that I'm not directly competing with either current store - different area of emphasis, different diversification lines.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Update on this?

I think your bookstore concept is a great idea. There's a 90.3% chance you already thought of this, but You can also research different country's holidays and traditions and arrange book/meeting events around those days for further differentiation and give the store a real community feel.

Good luck!!!

[Izulde]

Update is, I ran the numbers and it's not feasible financially for the area that I'm in. Still a concept I'd love to do if I could find the right location for it