Sunday, September 16th - The grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence

Well, another surprise waiting for us this morning. When we got out the door to go to work, there was a basket at the door with some household stuff, some food and a note from the couple that lived across the hall (it almost looked like what you see in the movies, when people leave a baby in a basket at the door). Yep, they left; went back to Edmonton (there is an out clause in our contract saying that we can leave in the first 30 days; after that, you're in for two years). She teached grade 5 and he was high school. It's too bad because they were nice and we enjoyed their company.

Jacqui didn't react to well to this departure. She is so stressed with her situation. But their departure also meant that there is an opening in grade 5, as well as one in grades 1 and 3, thanks to last week's departure by another couple. So she talked about that on the bus on the way to work this morning and was told by a teacher not to touch the grade 3 class; these kids are bad news. Jacqui doesn't want to teach grade 1 so she went in to observe the grade 5 during the day and realized that things were not any better with that group (very little resources to work with, noisy kids, small classroom, ...). Her principal had been saying all weekend long that she was ready to help her set-up some centers in her SK class and that staying put would be her best option. I guess she was right. So Jacqui will give it another go in SK. She just has to change her outlook of the whole situation; this isn't Cambridge and never will be. Things are different and are supposed to be. She hears it, she agrees with it, but cannot help the feeling that she has. So we talk a lot! She thinks that she's turned the corner after seeing the other grades and listening to a lot of people at school. I hope so. This thing that we're doing can be a lot of fun, but right now, she's not having much of it (personally, I'm having a blast!). We will try to make this work. I think she'll be fine. To be continued ...