16. Bumps In The Road



Bumps in the Road

I have been writing about the current challenges I have been having with employment and licensure issues in my erstwhile career as a high school teacher.  Attending Western Oregon University for the license was not without serious complications.  Perhaps I should have taken the hint and quit right then.  But such is not my style.


My mother died the first day of work sample teaching during Term 2 at WOU.  

My whole world changed.  I probably should have just quit right then.  She died of natural causes, out-of-state.   I had just been there the weekend before to visit her.  Sadly, and oddly, her personal belongings were robbed before I got there, and before the mortician came.  I took time away for the family time and funeral and emptying her home for new residents, in addition to the necessary police work from the theft.  Those of you who have dealt with the belongings of a deceased parent know what this means.  My husband, brother, sister-in-law and I worked as efficiently as possible.  We eventually made our way back to Oregon with a U-Haul.  


While I was gone I missed some key instruction in the written aspects of The Work Sample, which vexed me later.  The Work Sample is the large written product of each term of student teaching.  Made it through.

My young adult son was in a head-on collision the first week of Term 4 student teaching.  

His whole world changed.  I probably should have just quit right then.  He was in the process of moving across the country, and still wanted to go.  He spent some time in his new area before his injuries brought him back home for awhile.  It was after I finished at WOU and was looking for work.  It’s perhaps better that I was busy with a textbook job at home instead of a teaching job away from home, because I was there as needed.  Having the text to write was good because he didn’t need or want me to hover as he moved through his various challenges.  He survived his wreck, and went on with his life, but with a future very different than the one he had planned.  




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