This is just a life update post.

When I finished student teaching, I had a roadmap laid out ahead of me:

• substitute teach for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year
• Go to a job fair
• Secure employment for the fall
• Enjoy my years teaching at an elementary school
• Prepare my résumé to look amazing so I could get hired to teach in Japan

I had just started rolling in the substitute teaching contracts. I had almost everyday scheduled, through March into April.

Then, the tablecloth got ripped off my neatly set table.

I don’t blame the virus. Honestly, I expected the closures to be exactly what they told us from the onset: a brief disruption meant to curb the immediate spread of the Wuhan virus to ensure our medical facilities were prepared to cope with the people that couldn’t get through it with their own immune system.

But then, the expectation changed. At first, they told us they needed us to stay home for a short time to make sure the spike came in smaller bursts, so hospitals could cope. But when that time was up, they started to convince us that the reason we needed to stay home was to stay safe. To keep everyone from getting it at all.

They didn’t keep their original word.

And, as a result:

• I became unable to substitute teach for the rest of the school year, and that was our sole source of income.
• My plan to attend the career fair was torn to shreds. At first, they decided to postpone it, until it got canceled entirely.
• More than ever, job competition has increased. My chances may have gotten even slimmer, which makes getting an entry level position even harder for a brand new teacher.

Now, there are things that have happened that I know would have most likely happened anyway.

I had interviewed with a school. They told me they wanted to offer me a job. I was ecstatic. Being proactive, I set out to secure housing. We paid over $300 in application and holding fees. I felt comfortable with the decision in apartments, although that had been a stressful endeavor entirely.

I had begun to dream about being at the school, participating in the community, getting to know the other teachers… and then the principal called it all off. He had decided to rescind the offer. What?

I was ready to go anywhere for this job. But the rug got swept out of under me. After all, I had been a little too proactive, not waiting for the contract to start looking for an apartment.

Lesson learned there.

Then, I got right to the applications again. Soon after, I scored another interview with a small district near where I had attended college. My husband and I loved the community there, and would have loved to live there again.

I did everything right in the interview, the team who interviewed me even said that I had done extremely well. But it wasn’t to be this time. A person had applied with more experience than I, and it was the natural choice of the district to hire them over a brand new teacher.

It’s not that I don’t understand why things happen the way they are happening. And I trust that there is a reason for all this. God knows it. And I trust God.

I’ve got another long road ahead of me—applications, applications, more applications, interviews, and hopefully job offers. Time will tell.

In the mean time, God has given us an opportunity. You see, Noah had also been hitting the applications hard. The idea was that he could work a temporary, full time job until I began working in the fall.

He did secure that job and is working very, very hard, putting in long hours. I can’t believe how hard he is working to support us in this time.

My main thoughts at the end of this post are that we’ve had many ups, and we need to learn from the downs.

Thank you for reading this update. I know that some things I can control. And I’m doing what I have to do to get it done.