Taking Over For God

Last July, I drove to Salinas, CA for a job interview. (On the way home, I stopped for a picnic lunch on the beach near Carmel, then at the Carmel Mission, then in the town itself--really gorgeous part of California.)

I remember sitting in the interview--it was a high school choir position--getting more and more uncomfortable as the principal and teachers present laid out the job. The choir teacher was there, too. He was retiring after a long, successful career and was hoping to find a great, dynamic music teacher to take over his beloved program.

I was looking for the nearest exit.

See, I've been there, done that. I spent two years teaching high school choir in Antioch. I'm not opposed to teaching high school again, but I am opposed to being the poor schmuck who takes over for God, in the form of a much-loved, long-running high school choir director.

My friends, it is hell.

I'm far enough removed from Antioch now that I can talk about it more, and I don't feel like a failure anymore. I wasn't so much a failure as just inexperience and being unprepared. I didn't know who to ask for help. My Leo ego told me, "I got this!" when in reality, I was too young for that job.

Taking over Mrs. H.'s program that first year, was a crazy mix of angry students (if I had a dime for every time I was told "Mrs. H. used to..." or "You should do it like Mrs. H. did..." I could have retired after the first six months, bought an island, and right now I'd be sipping margaritas and having my hot, muscled pool boy fanning me with a palm frond.) and complaining parents. The kids were angry at Mrs. H. for leaving them. They were angry at me for replacing her. They were angry at the universe for the fact that they were teenagers. Anger, anger, anger. Angst, angst, angst.

Also? Endless fundraising. Gah, the fundraising.

If you look at the right-hand sidebar on this blog, you'll see all the months of posts I have written since this blog started in July 2004 (almost eight years--where does the time go?). You might notice that between August 2006 and June 2008, I didn't post a whole hell of a lot.

I was so stressed.

Before Antioch, even in the harried English adventure and the year in Washington, I'd been on a steady downward trend with my weight, or at least holding steady. In Antioch, my weight skyrocketed. For the first time, I was over 200 pounds. I went on blood pressure medication and anti-depressants. My ability to handle stress was always shaky, but in Antioch, I started having panic attacks sometimes, just at the thought of going to work. It was debilitating.

In 2008, enough was enough. I considered a 3rd year but fate had other things in store for me. I got the Stockton job and left Antioch. The rest, as they say, is history. In the four years since I left, I've had a lot of successes, a few setbacks, and it's all been blogged here. The best part is obviously the weight loss and going off all of the medications.

I bring all of this up not because I need to vent it or let it go--goodness knows I've done enough of that to various friends and I've moved past it--a long time ago. I mention it tonight because a few days ago, I was looking for new music postings on Ed-Join (a very awesome web site where pretty much every school district in California posts its job openings) and I saw that the Salinas job I interviewed for last July is open again.

At this point, I don't really care to move all the way to Salinas (even if it is but an easy drive from Carmel, Monterey and my beloved Pacific), but I found it interesting. Apparently, the person who was hired to take over for God at Salinas High School found that it's much harder than appears from the outside, just as I did in Antioch.

I've thought over the last couple of years that I wouldn't mind teaching high school again--but it would need to be on my terms. I'd rather build a nice little program that consists of beginning, intermediate, advanced and jazz choirs, with emphasis on community engagement--singing at assisted living facilities, for example--over the yearly trips to Disneyland and the expectation that the only acceptable outcome in a competition is first place, rather than a chance to get valuable feedback from expert judges and to see other groups and learn from them.

The Antioch experience wasn't entirely bad--I had some students that I was happy to see graduate, believe me, but I also had some wonderful kids who worked hard to cooperate with the new teacher, even when they didn't fully understand my methods. I had some really helpful parent volunteers--I drew the line at sewing Show Choir costumes--and some incredibly supportive colleagues that I still keep in touch with.

Anyway, all of this came rushing into my head when I saw the job posting on Ed-Join. Who knows what the particulars are--but it seems that the first replacement for the much-loved choir teacher wasn't tough enough to keep going. I made it two years. It's a tough gig.