I found a great little sticker for my car today. It’s a red square with a big blue dot and says “Another bright blue dot in a really red state”. We got two and stuck the other one on the back of Lynn’s wheelchair!!
It’s fall in Mississippi and the McCain-Palin signs and bumper stickers are springing up like crocus. I know I should not be surprised, but it still jars me. I know this too is America, but at times living here feels far more foreign to me than when I was living in London.
10 minutes into Thursday’s VP debate I turned to Lynn and said “we’re screwed” because I knew how many would be taken in by Palin’s sappy folkiness. Or maybe not. I think the cynicism of the 2000 and especially the 2004 elections have left me just not wanting to get my hopes too high. It will be nice if I get a surprise in November. But then again I am living in a state that, to my utter amazement, still allows corporal punishment in public schools. Yes PUBLIC. And here I am on the verge of teaching here.
About that: I finished a very rigorous three week alternate route training program this summer. All day, 4 days a week for three weeks. Now we have one Saturday session a month for the school year. The school year here runs from August to May. I did not secure a full time teaching position in August ( as they tend to hire coaches to teach social studies) so I decided last month to start substitute teaching full time until I can get a permanent position. It’s been a few weeks now and I am actually enjoying it. At first, I was a bit nervous. Not because I thought I could not actually teach, but because I feared that maybe since it’s been a while I would find that I did not want to do it anymore. But to my pleasant surprise, not only did I like it, but it felt very natural and I knew it was what I needed to do.
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