Yeah. Well done, infi - recognition and reward for the work you've done and your knowledge. I, too, hope that the meeting bears positive fruits for yourself and your cow-orkers in the near future :)

Thanks all.

By the way limey, you are a genuinely kind person. I've been wanting to say that for a while and this seemed like a good time. :) thank you!

:)

With this temporary admin job having about three weeks to go, it now seems that there won't be teaching work for me at this school from August. Enrollments were a little down, and existing teachers have it covered.

It's a bit of a disappointment; the money would be good and the lifestyle quite acceptable.

Well, I'm sitting here making lists of all the other things I could do instead. There are so many options I don't know how to choose which one(s) to pursue.

I have a startling and almost frightening amount of freedom.
In fact, I have no mortgage, no dependants, not too much sense of responsibility, and soon no job. I have quite a bit of savings.
I was originally thinking of a house deposit, but I could go travelling for a year or even two if I went cheap.
Or try to transition to an independent editor/technical writer with a bit of more creative and expressive writing on the side.
Or try other combinations of travel and work.
Or go be a hippy in the woods.
Or whatever ...

Hmmmmmmmm, some deep thinking time for me.

I wish I had that freedom. I haven't been (or have been able to be) very financially responsible. If I could, I'd leave here and take some time off and 'find myself' something I never had a chance to do. We don't do that "take a year off between college and life" thing here unless you have a wealthy family, and most of us never studied abroad.

I'd enjoy a trip if I were you. You have plenty of time to settle into the grind (I'm assuming you're not an 85 year old woman, since we don't really KNOW!) ;)

Today and tomorrow I am running a garage sale at the house I grew up in. This is the last of my childhood furniture and all the other random crap that I remember, at least that part of it that my Dad didn't take to his new house. I already took the things I wanted, including a lamp for my daughter's room (which we called my "sick lamp" because it only ever got turned on in the middle of the night when I was ill,) and the funny looking blue stained glass light fixture (that I certainly won't be hanging in my house, but I spent thousands of hours staring aimlessly at as a child so I had to have it anyway,) and some small Christmas decorations that, again, are not actually that nice but they featured heavily in my youth. But it's still weird to be watching people walk away with these memories of mine, and to think that after this weekend I will never set foot in this ugly, disintegrating house again, with its wood paneling falling off the walls and nasty brown shag carpet that has never been cleaned in 30 years.

Sounds like a rough mix of feelings. You'll survive it though.

Oh I'll definitely survive--well, barely, with the 105 degree heat and all. But it's more just an interestingly poignant event, not a difficult thing really.