Sunday, April 04, 2010

Happy Spring!

This may be a bit of a repeat, but since I just sent this update summary to a friend, I thought I would share the gist of it on catscupboard:

Happy Spring! I am heading into a lovely stretch where I actually have spare time again. A bound copy of my M Ed thesis arrived this week, just in time for my grad photo tomorrow - convocation in June. I got into the VP pool but have nothing more to do there than await an appointment to a school sometime over the next 2 years (well, I will look at other options if nothing happens by the end of June). So I am beginning to go back to my own writing in my spare time, and will be doing a poetry/lyric reading along with a few other writers on April 18 at an event called Poetry in Motion, interspersed with Swing, Rumba, and Tango demonstrations and a group Swing Dance lesson at the end of the evening. Should be fun. And that is the ticket, isn't it? Gotta love what you do. Keep taking good care of yourself and each other. And enjoy this great weather.

Friday, April 02, 2010

With all my options open

Now why is it that some folks can blog like mad, and I trail off very quickly after every attempt to take this up on a weekly if not daily basis. Maybe they have more time in their daily lives. Or maybe...oh, well. Nevermind. The thing is, at the moment I do have more time than I have had for the past several years. Things on the big list are getting ticked off. And not only that, but the 5-year plan is rolling to a close and it is getting time to start a new one. The lovely bit is that all my options are open. On November 2, 2009, I successfully defended my M Ed thesis. I was reminded of that the other day when the bound copies arrived via Purolator. Brock U kept 3 for the libraries there, and I ordered an extra 3 for the kids, I guess. Anyway, I have 4 including the one with the original documents in it. But my point is that my birthday fell on Friday, October 30 last year, so that on November 2, the day I defended my thesis, I also became fully vested in my OT Pension Plan - I hit my 85 factor. There was a bit of discussion about future research (there are some folks who really like my M Ed thesis, and there is one who likes the research I had intended to do on the history of specialty arts education in Ontario before I got sidetracked into organizational studies and accountability in a non-profit educational organization). So, you know, one option that also opened up that day was the possibility of doing a dissertation and completing my doctorate. Don't think that is going to happen. As it turns out, I have become far more interested in administrative work than in taking more courses or doing more teaching, all of which would be part and parcel of completing a doctorate. Oh, and I am also not interested in doing any more part-time graduate work. So the only way that option could remain viable would be for an institution to fund me, nay, to pay me to work full-time at completing said doctorate. Still a possibility, but more and more a remote one. However, the interest in administration is where I turned my attention next. I had my application package for the Vice Principals' pool in on January 15, 2010. My interview was March 2, and I heard on March 4 that I had made it into the pool. At a meeting this past Monday, I learned that I remain in that pool for up to 2 years, and that while it is not attached to a score, or time, or seniority - I may not get a posting to a school as a Vice-Principal for up to 2 years. Or ever! Hmmmm. Well, in the meantime, I am going to complete the transformation of WexLibrary that I started in 2006. There are a number of fairly large loose ends to tie up. However, come the end of June, if I have not been appointed as a VP, I really will have to consider my other options. I didn't mention anything other than doctoral work? Oh, no. There are lots of other possibilities. I could do the research and writing for the history chapter of the book that will come out of that one professor's work. I could make the leap from education to direct a small non-profit. I could vie for a district or ministry level job. Or I could retire from education, and open the Cat's Cupboard, a consignment only gallery of fine crafts with a back room designed for showing art, rehearsing and presenting dance and drama, poetry readings on Sunday afternoons, Jazz on Thursday nights. Whatever. All of my options are open.