A personal post

I very rarely write "personal" stuff here, but since I let my so-called "personal blog" devolve into a depository for my 2008 reading list, I'll just make a brief post here.

As some of you know, I've been working for three and a half months as a general teacher (meaning I taught all subjects) at a residential treatment center in my hometown area (near Nashville, place unimportant). I was hired to teach the girls' unit and special education for the boys. Unfortunately, due to many things outside of my (or the center's, apparently), the numbers on the girls' unit dropped to the point where they had to suspend the program until new insurance carriers could be brought on board. So...

Yeah. I'm technically without a job now, being laid off for probably a few weeks to a couple of months. While I'll be looking for work in the interim (and there is the possibility of me being rehired next week at a reduced rate to work in another department), there is oddly a slight silver lining for this blog. Since I won't be quite as exhausted during the week (and since this is more like a semi-paid vacation, as I'll draw benefits), looks like I'll finally have the time to sit down and write out two rather lengthy reviews, one for here (on John Rieder's Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction), and one for Strange Horizons (dual reviews of Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia and Jo Graham's Black Ships; this one will have its draft complete by this weekend, I believe). Oh, and maybe a few other things, as time and mood permit.

Don't care for sympathy now; I have it easier than many others I worked with recently. Just wanted to post to get it out, to get the positivity flowing again, and to get ready to write some of the better reviews I'll have written in quite some time.

Now all I need to complete the feel-good part of this is for people to send me squirrel pictures. I dunno why, but I think it'd be amusing.