Birthday

Maia celebrated her 11th birthday Monday with dinner at The Olive Garden and a cookie cake. Hard to believe my little girl is growing so fast!

Ok, so I'm officially no longer employed or teaching. I've decided that perhaps my experience of one week and two days at the Darul Arqam School was God telling me I shouldn't be teaching. I was thrown into 7th and 8th grade English with no clue about grading or lesson planning and that was the least of my worries. I thought it was interesting they wanted me to spend a day with the teacher they brought in to replace me. I left a lesson plan for the rest of the week and detailed notes about the students and class, all of which I didn't have the luxury of having and was pretty much left to fend for myself. It probably would have been different experience if it were a Christian or Catholic school, but it was a little too foreign for me. I'm pretty sure none of the teachers knew my name as everyone is referred to as "sister" and usually they spoke Arabic if I was around or didn't really speak at all. The kids were "normal" 7th and 8th grade students, but some didn't speak English very well, so it became a teaching English as a second language for some. One little boy flat out told me he hated the class and showed no effort although I gently coaxed him on a daily basis to open his book and do the in class work.

On the other hand, yesterday I had a second interview for a part-time work from home Editor job for a local publication called Cy Fair Magazine. Jeff actually found the job for me online. When she called to set up the second interview she said I was on the top of the list...so yesterday I met with the assistant editor to the Publisher. I thought it went well again and left my references who I am sure will all give me glowing reviews. I'll let you know how that turns out, until then I continue to send my resume out.

Next week will be the first since I met Jeff that I wasn't home in Scottdale for Thanksgiving. There are some definite advantages to being here in Houston like it's still in the upper 60's and low to mid 70's here during the day. We are in full swing for our Christmas concert at church and I'm catching up on laundry and cleaning I let slide by the last week!