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April 25, 2006
Brooklyn Bound
It’s official: I have accepted a position as a high school math teacher at Poly Prep, a private school in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. My god, I’m about to become a New Yorker…. To all of the hundreds of people to whom I’ve said “I love visiting NY but I don’t think I could ever live there”, well, I guess we’ll find out, eh?
Poly seems like a really wonderful and interesting place, and I’m excited to be a part of it. Obviously it’s significantly different from Cristo Rey and Wash. U, so in many ways this will be a new experience. In other ways, though, it feels to me like a sort of homecoming; the similarities between Poly and USM are myriad, and I’m confident I’ll fit in pretty easily.
Fitting in with Brooklyn is another matter, however. I’m really anxious about finding an apartment; the cost of living is startling. According to Craigslist, a 1-bedroom starts at around 1200/month, and (forgive me) I’m just too old and weird to live with a roommate anymore. Unless it’s Alli, with whom I’ve been talking about the possibility of getting a 2-bedroom near Columbia. I think that’d be pretty awesome, but I’m worried about the commute. Lots of logistics to figure out there.
Anyway, finally the job search is over and I know more-or-less where I’ll be for the foreseeable future. Amazing.
Posted by alex at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
April 06, 2006
The Serenity Prayer
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Normally I’m not one for references to God or prayer, etc.; I’d be happy enough to achieve such serenity, courage, and wisdom without its being divinely granted. Nevertheless, the famous Serenity Prayer reflects one of the issues I seem to be struggling with lately, namely control. Certainly many people have control issues, in various contexts and to varying degrees of severity. In my case, the biggest obstacle seems to be “serenity” — I do okay recognizing the difference between what I can control and what I can’t, but I have a hard time accepting the latter.
I may have more thoughts on this later, but I’m going to leave it there for right now and, y’know, go do my job for a change. :) For what it’s worth, I do accept that I have some control over the lab but not over the students. There’s just no controlling them….
Posted by alex at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)