Clearer Skies

A lot of the things I've been stressed about have worked out, or are on their way to being worked out.

I have an apartment! It's a one bedroom, is a five minute drive to work, and super affordable. My address is

609 Rose Park Lane NE
Keizer, Oregon 97303

Send good tidings and cookies my way.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to move in until Friday or so. So I'm continuing to stay in a nearby hotel for the first few days of work. Not so great.

In the meantime, I'm finally able to focus a little more attention on the job I'm doing at school. I'll be teaching high school orchestra, elementary string lessons, and team teaching middle school orchestra. I'm also taking over the pit orchestra for the HS musical. I'm definitely going to need to put in time outside of school to step up my game a bit. It's been almost four years since I finished student teaching, the last time I had any real time in front of an orchestra. But I couldn't be happier about having my own groups.

I've gotten to see a little bit of Portland, but the past week has been so focused on getting stuff together that I haven't had a whole lot of time to grok Oregon yet. That will come with time. Also, I'm looking forward to getting hiking/biking gear to explore the Coast and Eastern Oregon, where all the good mountains are. Despite all the rain, the temperatures have stayed at least in the 40s, so I'm thinking I'll be able to hike and bike through the winter months. Also, as soon as I finish this post I will begin searching for the best gym in the area.

A big challenge for me is to be able to reach out to other teachers/staff members and ask for help. Everyone has been really kind and generous in offering their help, but I tend to want to be self sufficient. So that usually causes problems and stress because 1. I have no idea where anything is here and 2. It takes longer me to figure out the best way to do things on my own. So one of my goals over the next six months or so is to learn how to use my support systems.

Enough rambling, the real fun begins Tuesday.

Happy New Year!