Who does that!?

As promised, now that I am back home here is an update about Arizona.

Monday I flew out bright and early into Phoenix, picked up my rental car and headed to the Grand Canyon to see Addie. We had an interesting dinner that consisted of squash spaghetti. We caught the end of the sunset then hung out at her place till we both crashed.

Tuesday we went to breakfast at El Tovar which was amazing. After that we headed out on the Trail of Time which was a walk through the history of the formation of the Grand Canyon. We stop at the visitor centers to see what was going on, and of course to get the all important Jr. Ranger Book. We listened to a geology talk by Ranger Ty which was pretty awesome. We continued walking and made it to the main visitor center just in time to catch Addie's former roommate, Ally, start her first talk. We stayed a few minutes then caught the new movie at the visitor center. We took the shuttle back to the car (after walking 3 miles one does not want to turn around and go back immediately) and walked around some more. We headed in the opposite direction and was able to see some local art from the high school students. Then we headed over to one of the visitor centers for the Porch Talk. This was important because Addie has to give a porch talk today and she wasn't sure what to do it on. This porch talk was about squirrels, trees, fungi, and squirrel poop. It was pretty interesting and I think all of the Jr Rangers enjoyed talking about poop! Then we were in search of ice cream. After standing in line for half an hour we ate our ice cream while waiting for another ranger to give her talk about the California Condors and how they are coming back in the park and they are really excited about it. It was a very fun day (minus the sunburns Addie and I got from lack of sunscreen or hats).

Wednesday Addie set out for the Canyon and I packed up all my stuff and headed to Show Low. This was about a 3-4 hour drive through the beautiful country side. Up and over mountain with breath taking views. When I arrived in Show Low I found the high school, parked, walked into the main office and met with the principal. He took me on a tour of the school and kept saying, "this is going to be your classroom... if you are offered the position." There is a full culinary kitchen and he said that "you'll love the food the teacher cooks" I don't know if he was being positive or if he said these things to everyone. Anyway, back to the office to wait for everyone else on the panel to show up for the interview. There were 10 questions that they had and they round robin asked these questions. None of the questions were particularly hard but I'm glad I went to grad school because my experiences in class made me more capable of answering these questions. Everyone made fun of my sunburn but was very pleased that I had stopped at the Grand Canyon before making the trek to Show Low. After the interview the principal had suggested that I go over to the district office and get finger printed, again just in case I was offered the position so I didn't have to fly back just to be finger printed. They were a little worried about the $10 deposit I had to make, in case I wasn't offered the position, this was nonrefundable. While waiting to hear from the woman who did the finger printing most of the panel and I were just chatting. The subject of Sam came up, along with the wedding, and a few other things.

So I went to get finger printed. I drove around the area around the schools and there seemed to be a nice neighborhood with a few houses for sale... found the fire house, talked with the chief about Sam and how he might be applying for a job. Then headed to the hotel in Phoenix. I wrote thank you letters to the panel of 5 and passed out exhausted.

Thursday I headed back home. While sitting at the airport in Atlanta I recieved a phone call from an unknown number. I answered it and it was the principal from Show Low! He said I was the top candidate right now with one interview left and that it would take a very strong candidate to knock me from that top spot. With that said he wanted me to contact the department of education and see what it would take for me to get an Arizona teaching certificate, with reciprocity and my background it shouldn't take much. So now I'm waiting till the office opens so I can call them and find out how difficult it is going to be, which I don't think it will be too hard.

I took this as a good sign and can't wait to hear more, and they haven't even gotten the thank you letters yet! They won't get them till Tuesday since there is no school today or Monday. They get 20 inches of snow a year, 25ish students per class, 800 students in the school, and they are changing their schedules next year to 6 block periods instead of 4 so there will be 3 preps, which some of the teachers are freaking out about. Not a lot of technology in the classroom, but enough. The surrounding area is beautiful and the town is surrounded by national forests that are dog friendly. And the Grand Canyon is only a few hours away =)

So keep your fingers crossed until Tuesday or Wednesday and hopefully I will have a job!