Stress

Dear Readers,

I’m stressed out.

There’s a teaching job fair in Vail, Arizona tomorrow and I’m thinking about going, and driving through Queen Creek, just to see what that place looks like, but I don’t really have my letters of recommendations ready or my references ready or a lot of other things ready and I think I might have to shave off my beard before I have an interview and I don’t really want to shave my beard- I like my beard; it’s grown on me.

See, right now I’m at a crossroads in my life- a turning point. I’m not at a moral or a political or a philosophical crossroad; I’m at a physical crossroad (metaphorically.) Ha ha ha. What I mean is, literally, right now, I’m in my apartment sitting at a desk, typing on a computer, but I have some big decisions to make soon, decisions about where to live and where to work, you know what I mean?

As I previously announced on Telemoonfa Time, I’m leaving NAU and Flagstaff this May or June or July to seek my fortune as an high school English and maybe drama teacher somewhere in Arizona, but there’s a gazillion options- a gazillion variables under my control and a gazillion variables out of my control. No, there’s more than a gazillion variables out of my control- the number is probably closer to a double-gazillion quadrillion to the infinityiest power!!!

And there’s a big commitment involved in buying a house and agreeing to work somewhere. Buying a house is basically saying that you’ll stay in the house for at least… oh… three years I guess, or longer if we can’t sell it, and when I accept a job as a teacher (assuming I’ll actually get one) I’ll be under contract to stay there for at least a school year. And if I break my contract and leave early, my reputation will be smeared and it will be hard to get a different teaching job somewhere else later.

Can you see how I have some big commitments to make, and a lot of things to think about? And then the economy stresses me out, so that’s not cool either. And I’m getting mixed messages about the teaching market right now. On one hand, school districts are advertising job fairs over the radio, and then on the other hand, schools are cutting funding like crazy, because the state (and the whole country, really) is in an economic mess. 600 faculty at Arizona State University just got laid off, and NAU is on a hiring freeze, and the budget is predicted by Professional Predictors to be even worse next year.

Job hunting and job interviews make me uncomfortable, and I really haven’t had to do it very much, and now I’m being thrown right into the middle of it. I’ve never bought a house before, either. And that’s a huge confusing process. There’s so much jargon and stuff and stuff and stuff to think about. Plus, the idea of borrowing $100,000 or more is insane to me. I’ve never borrowed more than maybe $900 in my life, and that was on my credit card.

Anyway, my wife and I are thinking about moving to Queen Creek, Arizona, because the houses there are cheap. Like, really really cheap. You can get a relatively new 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house in Queen Creek for $90,000! And there’s tons of Mormons there, too. (By the way, you may think that “there’s tons” is ungrammatical, and it is, sort of, but, you know what? “There’s tons” is the way of the future. I have foreseen it. Remember when people used to say that you can’t end a sentence with a preposition? Well, that rule is dead now, and the people who still tell people that you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition are elderly and unattractive. And “whom” is going the way of the dodo bird, too, so I think that when I say, “there’s tons,” I’m not being ungrammatical, I’m just moving with the times, or maybe I’m a advocate for grammatical change. I’m a soldier in the progressive grammar army.)

But it seems like what I want right now is a house with a garage and a yard and a mailbox and a simple life in the suburbs.

Another thing I need to think about is if I should try to continue my Master’s degree as a distant student online or if I should go to summer school or something like that. I just talked with one of my old professors and she wants me to go to summer school this summer, I guess, but I don’t want to spend the money on that. I’d rather pour all my money into a down payment on a house.

And I’ve told myself a lot lately, “Oh, Telemoonfa, you can’t do anything about your job for a while, or your future place of residence. Just wait until that gigantic teacher job fair in April, and then you can sign a contract, and then you can get pre-approved for a loan, and then things will come into clearer focus.” But I just can’t stop thinking about all my alternatives. And of course it’s more fun to think about the alternatives and look at real estate listings on the Internet than to do my homework and wash the dishes. Plus, if we wait too long to look for a house, we’ll end up having to rent a house for a while, which isn’t that big of a deal, but the process of moving is so ala-quiffert that I’d hate to do it more than I have to, plus when you rent a house you have to sign a lease for at least 6 months, and sometimes they make you sign a lease for a whole year and blah blah blah blah blah.

I can’t look for houses until I get pre-approved for a loan, because real estate agents don’t take you seriously if you’re not pre-approved, and I can’t get pre-approved until I sign a teaching contract, but I can’t get a teaching contract until a long time from now, maybe even until May, because the school districts don’t know how many people they’ll be able to hire until May when they figure out their budgets for the 2009-2010 school year, and I really don’t really know where I’ll be able to get a job, and I really don’t know if we’ll get approved for a loan anyway because one time like maybe six months ago I applied for another credit card just because there was this deal going on where if you get the credit card and spend $100 on it, then you get a free iPod shuffle, and I really wanted the iPod shuffle, so I applied for the credit card, but then I got a letter in the mail that said, “Sorry, Telemoonfa, looks like your credit is alawhutiest-wooper stoopern, so you don’t get a credit card or a iPod shuffle or nuff!” and so then I was like, “What’s up with that? Why is my credit quiffert? I thought my credit was super-fantabulous because I’m fiscally responsible, you know?” And then they were like, “Our computer systems just know about your credit’s stoopnoscity, Telemoonfa. We have objective indisputable empirical evidence that your credit is alawhutiest-wooper stoopern. Search your feelings, you know it to be true!” And I was like, “You guys are quiffert!” And that was the end of that conversation.

So I hope my magical mysterious credit score is better now, somehow, magically, because if it’s not better I’ll be like, “Ala-quiffert!”

I’m not asking for help or advice, dear readers, because I’ve gotten so much advice on buying a house and looking for a job that listening to the advice just stresses me out even more! Ha ha ha. You girls don’t know what I suffer with my nerves!

But even though I’m stressed, I need time to sit back and think about how these are really happy choices to make. I’m thankful that I’m in the position to think that I could realistically get a good paying, secure career, and I’m thankful that it’s really a realistic thing that I could be a homeowner in a few months from now.

See you later.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa

P. S. Quiz Time! Somewhere in this blog post I have quoted two movies. What movies are they? If you can’t figure it out, then look in the comments. I put the answer there.