events of 2005 part 3

Honduras was a nice break from our uncertain reality, but as soon as we came back we realized that we were not returning to our own place, but staying with my parents, it was tough. My parents did a great job making us feel at home and were great host, it was just tough because we were newly weds and successful engineers who found their independence hammered.

I was getting a lot of calls about engineering jobs, but none of them were in Florida. We were getting a little impatient and nervous about running out of money, so we thought it best to start listening to what recruiters had to say if they were located in a reasonable place. We went to the beach with my parents at the end of May for a week. Trying to save as much money as possible.

While I was at the beach a company from Florida wanted to interview me, but first I had to take a problem solving test. A headhunter also had a great slot for me with an aircraft company in Georgia that I was very excited about, but I wasn't hearing anything from them. As soon as I got back from the beach I went to the library to take a 12 minute problem solving test, which I completely bombed. I just simply didn't think about it correctly and had the wrong approach. So that job lead and hope was slammed along with a chunk of confidence.

My wife had gone back home to see her friends and family for a week. She was having a tough time dealing with the uncertainty and the lack of direction on what to do; because she really couldn't look or pursue a teaching career until I found a job, which wasn't happening. The longer I was out of a job the more questions the head hunters asked about why. So the longer I was out of a job the more stress was added because I became less and less desirable. When ever I mentioned my arms or that I had to use a tablet P.C. they became very cold.

By the middle of June I was beginning to look at the job fair in Orlando Fl. as the deadline for looking for an engineering job and start pressing hard to find a teaching job. My wife still had not recieved her eligibility letter to teach in Fl., which I had received mine by the end of May. This added to the frustration because she had sent all the information for both of us back in April. I really didn't even want to teach, I was doing it as a contingency plan.

We went down to Tallahassee, fl. a week before the job fair to try to find out what the problem was. We discovered that her transcript didn't have her social security number on it and her name had been changed because of our marriage, so her transcript got put in the don't know pile and was pretty much lost. We finally got them to locate it and tried to get them to get it done before the job fair, but the paper pushers weren't and didn't care.

So we were now going to the job fair without her eligibility letter, which was highly recommended to have before you went. There were several counties that would not even interview you unless you had it, so it was really discouraging. We both had interviews scheduled with Monroe county though. Mine was as 10:00 and hers was at 4:00.

When I interviewed at 10:00 the guy told me I qualified for Principals of technology and offered me a contract. This was incredible because this was similar to the course that was offered to my wife in Georgia, and I wished I was teaching it. I told them I had a wife that wanted to teach and if they wanted me they had to find a job for my wife. They only had an opening in Marathon, teaching Math. My job was in Key West 50 miles away so it created a dilemma that we needed to think about.

We talked to some other counties and nothing really seemed better or more exciting than living in the Keys. We ended up signing the contracts with Monroe County and was hoping they would be able to move my wife to Key West high School before school started. So we left that day to find a place to live somewhere between Marathon and Key West.move to the Keys