The Mertig Career Fair

I, Aaron, am taking over the blog again. We have some exciting news on the career front. (And yes, that rules out being pregnant again. :p)

First, Abby is going back to school in the fall to begin a degree in Radiology. She'll have a year of pre-requisites before the program starts the following fall. So if any of you need an x-ray in a couple of years, be sure to request her. She's been wanting to do this for a little while, and she will be able to coordinate being done with school by the time Benny is into full-time school.

Secondly, I got a great opportunity to combine running my own business with Tour Directing to also doing some training for one of the companies aimed towards new Tour Directors. That will allow me to spread out my being out of town so that it's not so heavy in the spring.

To be honest, the three student travel companies I was working for have been beating down my email door to get back into it. Being that I can control my own schedule, can make more money doing Tour Directing, and love it more than teaching outweigh any potential negatives.

Teaching has been good overall for me, but after doing Tour Directing for the last couple of years, and then going back to teaching has been an eye-opener for us. If you've followed my situation closely, I've got an extremely challenging group of 2nd Graders to say the least. That, and the move to 2nd Grade in the first place has been tough. We're still trying to help these kids that are having issues, but most of them are extensions of home issues, and so it's extremely frustrating.

The thing about Tour Directing is that I don't have to motivate kids who aren't motivated to learn, discipline, worry about if they've eaten breakfast, worry about if they're going home that night to an empty house, or worse, alcoholic parents, grade papers, do lesson plans, etc. All I get to do is lead groups of kids who are motivated to learn about history, government, cultural issues, etc. in DC. NYC, Boston, Philly, Chicago, the Western Parks, and so on, not out of a book, but in the actual places that these events occur. How cool is that? And I'm damn good at it also.

The whole Tour Directing thing happened when I got laid off from a 7th Grade job, and didn't get called back until the beginning of this 2008-09 school year. I guess it's a case of when one door closes, another one opens. I kind of liken this to way back in the day when my dad didn't want to transfer to the Twin Cities with the paper company, and ended up working with the DNR. Now, while I still think he was getting paid to fish, I know he loved it. (And Dad, if you ARE reading this, be honest. You WERE being paid to fish, weren't you???) I know it didn't pay as well at the time, but he sure as hell loved doing it. In my case, I am moving to running my own business as an independent contractor in doing something I love, AND I don't have to take a pay cut to boot. Have my cake and eat it too...

So anyways, I'm done writing now. I promise to wait another three months before I contribute to our blog, so you all don't have to read my blithering writing. But now, you don't have to see my name in the paper and wonder why I didn't tell any of you. (Though, embarrassingly enough, my name will be in the paper a 2nd time for not having current tabs on our blue van from the fine folks with Bayfield County. Apparently, when I updated my driver's license awhile back, that didn't update our address for the van, and we didn't get the little reminder card. Oops.)

Aaron, out.