Wah wah wah wah wah...

Yesterday was a big day in Fairietale Land.  I wrote this the night before, and for some reason it never got published so I'm doing that now.  :-)

I've been taking a little time off from the jewelry because I'm starting a new (part-time) job.  The kind you get paid for.  And unlike my last they-give-me-money-in-exchange-for-work situation, I can't wear my PJs and bunny slippers for this one.  It requires actually leaving the house.  Looking presentable.  And like I know something more interesting than how to make a PB&J sandwich or get dirt stains out of someone's favorite pants after a dust up on the playground.

In my pre-Big and Little life, I was a teacher.  A college professor, specifically.  Just about 12 years ago, when I was pregnant with Big, my husband got the job of his dreams and we ended up moving to another state.  The husband moved first since I was mid-semester at the time.  We'd talked about me being a stay at home mom, at least for the first couple of years, and I was looking forward to that.  Which worked out, since once I'd finished up and followed him to the new abode, I looked sort of like I'd swallowed a large basketball and wasn't really in top interviewing form anyway.

Years later, a good friend asked me to be her "Discussion Leader" for an on-line class she was teaching.  Basically I helped out with grading, facilitating the required on-line discussions as needed, answering questions.  All from the comfort of my home office (hence the PJs and slippers!), with most of the heavy lifting related to course design and content on somebody else's plate.  Did that a few times and it was a great experience.  Different from traditional brick and mortar teaching but not in a bad way.

Now that Big and Little are actually becoming independent human beings instead of blobs requiring constant care and feeding growing up, I had some free time and decided to explore my options a little.  Found a job posting at the local community college for adjunct faculty in my field and submitted an application.  Got called in for an interview (the strangest one of my life, but that's another story!).  And tomorrow, for the first time in over a decade, I'm setting foot in an actual classroom.  With real students.  Whom I need to amaze and entertain for 115 minutes twice a week over the course of the next 12 weeks.

I have nightmares in which my classroom looks something like this -

I'd forgotten how much work goes into this.  Creating a syllabus.  Coming up with assignments that actually teach something but don't bore the students into a coma.  Timing.  I have no idea how much I can/should pack into 115 minutes.  How much will they talk?  What do I do if they don't talk?  That means *I* have to talk!

Now I have a headache and am definitely freaked out.  The good news is that means I've got nowhere to go but up.  Wish me luck!

Friendship

Friends forever.
Maybe longer.

Big came up to me the other day and said "You were in college 15 years ago?"  After a bit of confusion, we eventually we figured out she'd been looking at my diplomas on the office wall and hadn't been reading my bachelor's.  If she had, the number would have been a bit bigger, which was what threw me off at first.  I'm old.  That thing is practically written on papyrus with an inked quill.

Which made me feel a little nostalgic.  Grateful that I can still remember that many years ago, too.

Do you have any friends dating back that far?  I'll admit that I really don't.  Between my undergraduate and graduate degrees I went to four colleges in four states.  I've also moved four times since finishing that last degree.  They say things come in threes so I wonder what it means that I've got so many "fours" in my life.  Apparently I just need an extra whatever it is in order to get the job done.  But I digress...back to my lack of "knew you from the cradle" friends.  My friends these days are "mommy friends", people I've met through play groups and school and whatnot since moving to my current state while pregnant with Big.

My last custom order, though, was four necklaces for four women who have been friends since college.  One of the ladies ordered them to give as gifts during a girls' weekend back at their alma mater.  I won't give too many specifics (since they're my age!), so as not to be forced to admit that not all of my gray hair has been caused by my children, but I will say that I don't have enough fingers and toes to count all those years.  Besides, if you've managed to retain more brain cells over the years than I have, you can figure a couple of things out from the pictures anyway.

I was given pretty much free reign with these, and the end result was different from my original design.  Better, in my opinion.  And from what I've been told, they went over well.

I love custom orders.  The items I make for the shop still let me be creative, but there's something different about coming up with an idea that's tailored for a specific person, to reflect their personality and history, and then experiencing their reaction to what I've done.   That adds a little extra magic to the process, at least for me.  Next up on the custom order train is a cuff bracelet for my mom.  It'll let me play a bit more with my new favorite toys, a set of stick figure people.  Not today, though...today I'm planning on doing nothing more than making and eating some homemade pizza and enjoying the (hopefully good) commercials in between downs of some pesky football game.  :-)