Company

I love getting company. I love when people come to see us. But I hate when they leave and then it's quiet again and you can't think of what to look forward to next. I have always been this way. Even when I was single. You might think that being married and having children would eliminate that lonely feeling after company leaves, but it doesn't totally. I miss my family. I miss North Dakota.

Vikings

My whole upper body is stiff from being so tense during the Vikings game. I don't know why I was so worked up. I mean it would have been awesome if they would have won and made it to the Super Bowl. But I had to keep reminding myself, "it's just a football game," but that didn't ease the tension. I just wanted to see them win and see Favre (and the rest of the team) make it to the Super Bowl.

Well-run organizations and Conan O'Brien

In a well-run organization, you wouldn't get in trouble for not following protocol when you call in sick, when no one ever told you what protocol was.

In a well-run organization, you wouldn't work for more than a month without a contract.

In a well-run organization, you wouldn't question which was the less of two evils: not having a contract, or actually getting one.

In a well-run organization, you wouldn't get shoved into doing something without some form of informational session or training.

In a well-run organization, there is a HR department.

Speaking of well-run organizations, what is up with The Tonight Show and NBC? I feel bad for Conan O'Brien. I know that he is going to get a whole lot of money out of the deal, but I feel like the guy never got a chance to make it work. I mean I never really liked him when he was on his late show, but I liked him on The Tonight Show. Don't get me wrong. I like Jay Leno too. I just feel it is bad for the institution known as The Tonight Show to keep a host for less than a year. It just seems to me like it cheapens the franchise. But that's just my opinion.

I'm just sayin'

Yesterday we had a meeting that involved knowing appropriate and inappropriate times to drink coffee. The conversation concluded with, "If you have any questions about what are appropriate times to drink coffee, let me know." I am not even kidding. I feel like in a well-run organization, you wouldn't waste people's time by having meetings about approriate times to drink coffee. You wanna know when an appropriate time is? The second after I got my degree. Either of my degrees. They qualify me to drink coffee (or my Mt. Dew) whenever I want. "Fair" is not a word that I worry about in terms of having a coffee (or Mt. Dew, as I tend to choose) while teaching. I will not be micromanaged in this way. I'm just sayin'.

A gift horse

So I know that I have spent much time complaining about not having a job. So, it should go without saying that in getting a job, I should just be happy. But, me being me, I have some things about my new job that I don't really care for.

1. I feel isolated. I feel like an outsider to the special ed staff that already exists. I don't know if this is because I am the only married one with children.

2. I don't like micromanagement.

3. I don't like a complete lack of direction either.

4. I don't like to be bored.

5. I don't like to feel like I am just being used for manual labor in the move to the new space.

6. I don't like that my first paycheck was not correct and that there was $0 withheld for federal. What's up with that anyway? I didn't even think that was humanly possible.

7. I don't like that there isn't a union to protect me from any errors in my paycheck (like if they say that they didn't promise me the salary they said that I would be getting).

8. I don't like that I haven't gotten a contract yet.

But to not be totally negative, here's a couple things I like:

1. I like that it is relatively close to where I live.

2. I like that we start later than at my last school. (But I don't like the being there so much later part...oh well, this is supposed to be the positive part.)