sing it with me:
ch-ch-ch-changes...

back in 2001 i i moved from maryland to my parents' house in jersey, after a disastrous episode of depression, dropping out of college, working two jobs, and ending up deeply in debt. so i came home, spent a while bumming around, watching a lot of law & order reruns, hanging out at the diner, and sitting in front of the computer.

then i got a job.
i worked my ass off, lived with my parents, and had virtually no social life. i was on antidepressants that made me sluggish, fat, and antisocial. they did, however, make me a very good cog in the corporate childcare machine, and i did a damn fine job of raising other people's children.

until i'd had enough, and i went back to school. i spent a total of three hours a day commuting from my parents' house to school. i wrote papers and poems and (really bad) fiction. i kept working at the daycare, commuting the hour and a half there and then another half hour home after that. spending 13-hours or more away from home. leaving at 6 am and getting home at 7:30. it wasn't especially fun.

all in all, the last five years have been full of change. and it's starting up again.

so, now for the big news!!! i have a JOB INTERVIEW on WEDNESDAY! it's a part-time job through the paterson YMCA, teaching poetry for an afterschool program. it's pretty much the absolute perfect job for my last year of college. it's part of what i really want to do with my life, helping people and teaching writing. i've always considered it, not charity, but the chance to help even out the injustices of my society. i've never felt sorry for the kids i've taught; i felt that it was unfair that they hadn't been given better opportunities and i wanted to work to change that. the most important thing i could possible teach anyone is self-expression, and teaching writing lets me do that.

not only do i have a JOB INTERVIEW!!! on wednesday, but i also have an appointment to see an APARTMENT!!! ok so it's a studio apartment in a basement. but it's still an APARTMENT!!! on a related note, real estate prices in north jersey are ri-dic-u-lous. $600 for a room in a basement? $700 for a one-bedroom third floor walk-up? they're killing me.

but it's exciting, the changes. finding a place, finding a new job, finding a sofa bed. the irony of taking a poetry class and then going to teach a poetry class immediately afterward. i can't wait for new folders, new pens and notebooks and classes and people...

i want it. and i can't wait.

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