When It Rains...

You know the rest.

This week, I will receive the last $450 of my unemployment benefits. That's it. Finito. The Great State of California can give me no more, and that's fair enough. I've been receiving benefits for two years.

In those two years, I've applied for many jobs--teaching positions, yes, but also retail positions (I find it slightly insulting that Target has turned me down twice after all the money I have invested in their store), random jobs here and there, and even my ill-fated adventure with insurance.

I've had interviews and rejections. I've gamely kept going. And now, I must find something.

I'm doing okay--I've got my summer job lined up, which will bring in a little bit of money. I have a small-but-growing studio of private piano students. There are other opportunities in the works, as well, so I'm not worried. But I really, really want a school job. And this week, I'm determined to get one.

I've been staring down this week with a focus on today and tomorrow, the days of my job interviews, hoping and visualizing and researching. And this afternoon, another call came in for another job interview--this one is not a school job, but it would be another opportunity to make some money and get some great teaching experience. It happens to be an art position, which would make those two years I was made to teach art (a subject I am not trained in and not credentialed in, and I'm sure the State Department of Education would have had a thing or two to say to my principal if they'd known she was making me teach it and evaluating me in it, but...bygones) worth something.

So that's three days in a row of job interviews. The art guy who called me said, "You're everything we're looking for."

So there's a lot of hope. I've budgeted and saved, so even though my unemployment is ending, I've got money in the coffers. More importantly, I've got a lot of hope and a really good feeling that things are going to come through for me. That it's my time to get out there and reverse my fortunes. I am ready to work with kids again; I've missed teaching so much.

Wish me luck!