My mom and I had a somewhat stressful discussion about the vagueness of my employment. To wit: I know that I am going to teach, but I don’t know under what terms or even how much I’ll earn. (Whoever goes into teaching for the money is nuts, but it would help to know how much rent I can afford!)

I guess what stresses me out is the fact that at 10:37 PM in the evening, I can’t do anything to improve the situation, and all these questions are making my department seem so bad. The CS department is really nice (although a bit disorganized), although yes, I’m somewhat peeved that they can’t really bend the rules for me. <wry grin> Case in point: after bugging the finance department for a little over a month, I’ve just recently been told that faculty housing is going to be nearly impossible for me to get because I already have housing in Manila. Makes sense. In fact, I felt somewhat guilty about having stayed in the dorm for so long, taking up a slot that may have let someone from the provinces study in Ateneo instead. The main thing that stresses me out, however, is the possibly firm stance my parents might have on the necessity of on-campus housing.

My mom seems to be softening a bit – she was offering to help me search for an apartment or a ‘bedspacing’ arrangement. However, this didn’t prevent her from checking with another school that was looking for teachers (an IT school – I want to teach computer science, not information technology!), which of course completely freaked me out. I spent the next half hour having a nice good cry with my kitten. I really, really want to teach in Ateneo because I’m more used to the school culture and I’ll have a better chance of being allowed enough latitude to experiment and possibly make a difference. I _hope_ my parents won’t make me choose another school, but if they express strong disapproval…

Another source of stress is the vagueness of the terms of my employment – aforementioned lack of information about such basic things as salary and job expectations. From the way things have been going around the department, I’d probably do more than your typical fresh-grad teacher. Me? Typical? But how does one consider these atypical things, then? I already do the work gratis, but it would be… somewhat nice to be appreciated, or… at least meet someone else who is as into these things as I am.

Maybe I should just set my sights on the Most Outstanding Junior Teacher award. I’ll need a lot of luck and practice to get that.

My mom basically thinks that they’re taking me for granted. I’m supposed to be the best in the Philippines, but there’s a very, very fine line between asserting that I deserve more than this… and being completely annoying and arrogant.

All I really want to do is teach. And learn. And have fun. And help other people learn and have fun. Not necessarily in that order.

Mental note: Be much more assertive.

How assertive can I get, anyway? <wry grin> I can’t very well threaten not to teach in Ateneo, because everyone knows I really want to do so. I guess the better approach would be, “Wouldn’t that be the professional thing to do?”

Or something like that.

<sigh>

Update: Okay, now that I’ve gotten my employment jitters out of the way, I can concentrate on preparing for class. =) I really, really love our school.