Thursday, February 28, 2008

Searching for a job

I've started sending out some job applications now. I've applied to five schools here in Oslo that sound interesting, and then today I also sent a letter and my resume to a school nearby where I did my student teaching a few years ago. They haven't announced that they're looking for teachers, but I thought that it doesn't hurt to let them know I'm interested. I'll probably do the same thing for other schools that I'm particularly interested in.

A friend of mine who lives about an hour outside of Oslo applied for 9 schools in her school district. The application deadline was on Friday the 22nd, and today she got calls from 3 different schools who are interested in having her come in for an interview. Hopefully something similar will happen to me!!

I'm pretty much obsessed with this job thing, and I know I won't relax until I have a job!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Winter break

This week is a school vacation. Gaute had to work yesterday and today, but this evening we're heading up to the cabin. I only have classes every other day. I went to school yesterday, but I'm skipping Wednesday and Friday. I think I'll manage to pass my classes still ;-)

As I'm writing this, it's about 40 degrees here in Oslo and lightly raining. It sounds so nice to get up to real winter in the mountains!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Name Day

Today is my name day! In Norway, each day of the year is associated with a name, or a group of similar names. And today is the name day for Jill! In the newspaper here, they always have a little blurb about which name day it is, and interview someone with that name. That's about the extent of the excitement. From what I've heard, name days are actually celebrated in Sweden, but according to Wikipedia (my favorite website, by the way), a calendar company randomly assigned the most common Norwegian names to the different days of the year in 1988. So it's not exactly a tradition around here.

But, the interesting thing is that while I was searching around on the web now, I found a site that the Social Security administration has where you can check the popularity of various names, both now and in the past. I've know for a long time about a similar site in Norway, but I didn't realize that there was an American equivalent. I think names and statistics about names are fascinating for some reason, so I was pretty happy to find it. And, I checked the statistics for my name for the last 100 years and was quite surprised. Jill was relatively popular in the 20's but was used less and less often until it reached a low point right around, well, 1969. But, the interesting part is that the name has been gaining a lot of popularity lately and is now up to the same level it was in the 1920's. I actually know someone who named her baby Jill, but I kind of thought that was a fluke. Interesting to think that there are so many little baby Jills around. I've always really liked my name, and I hope they do, too!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Life and stuff

Student teaching is over...forever. Student teaching this year was definitely challenging, but now that I'm done, my overall impression is positive. For many different reasons, the school was difficult, but on the other hand, there were some fantastic students there who I will really miss. I made chocolate chip cookies which I took for them the last day, and they were going crazy - they'd never tasted anything so good. I had to promise to send them the recipe - which I did.

But now that student teaching is over (as well as the fun stomach flu that I had on Tuesday), it's time for me to start thinking seriously about applying for jobs. I've been dreading the process for a long while now, but once I got my act together, I'm realizing that it's not the most difficult process in the world. I've contacted two people who I can use as references and I've written my resume, so now I just need to figure out where I want to work.

At my college on Tuesday, representatives for various school districts on the outskirts of Oslo came and tried to recruit students to come and teach at their schools. It was kind of fun going around talking to them, because when I told them that I wanted to work at a middle school and what my background was, they were practically offering me a job on the spot. Some of the schools aren't far out of Oslo, and it really wouldn't take me more than 20 minutes to drive to them, but I think I'd rather be a bit closer to home (distances are small around here compared to say, California). We'll see, though. The schools in Oslo haven't actually posted any jobs yet. They wait a bit longer than the other school districts, probably because they can afford to. I talked to a friend of mine who is a teacher, though, and she said that practically every school will have at least one opening and that I should be able to pick and choose, so I think I'm going to play it cool for a while longer.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Yes, I still want to be a teacher

Today was much better than yesterday. It was actually a pretty good day - except for the last few hours, when things went downhill pretty quickly. I was actually done with my teaching for the day, but ended up going in and talking to them and trying to set things straight. Most of the kids are great, but the few who aren't are pretty bad and really ruin it. But, on the whole, a good day.

Do I really want to be a teacher?

I'm in the middle of student teaching right now, and it's crazy. The school is totally run down (scheduled to be torn down in a couple of years), and the kids are obviously not used to any form of discipline. I spent all weekend planning my teaching, and it didn't go very well yesterday. Actually, the actual teaching went pretty well, but it's just out of control during recess and between classes. I was so worn out when I got home last night!! I can't imagine this being my life every day. I'm really going to have to do some research before I apply to any schools and make sure that I find a place where I want to work.

And, now, it's off to school...