I could just effin' cry. My day started out OK, and now I feel like poor Eeyore, with some small-ass donkey-magnet rain cloud of gloom hanging over my head.

Our school got "the call" today. It was supposed to happen after March Break (which is next week), so I wasn't even thinking of it. What's "the call"? It's when the school district's human resources guy calls the principal to tell him or her how many staff positions we'll have next year. Us, who didn't even have eight full teaching positions to begin with, got cut by half a position. Now, we're down to 6.96 teachers. Happy March Break.

6.96 positions. Guess who's the seventh guy in? At most, now, unless someone transfers out, I'll have a 96% contract. That'd be pretty good, sure, but the contract I sign at the end of this year is my tenure contract. It's kind of like, whatever % I sign that at, I could be stuck at that % indefinitely. I'd like to have 100% at the end of the year, but that may now mean I'd have to move to another schools. Even that may be tough, as transfers could be in short supply since 17 schools got cut. Moving schools would suck, 'cause the kids are swell, the staff is great and gets along very well, I like what I teach, the community knows me better and whatnot now... all that could be gone. I really don't want to start all over at another school again. I just want to have my little place, stick there, and go about doing a good job. Is that too much to ask for?

Once again I feel professionally vulnerable and up in the air, at the mercy of things I have little or no control over. This morning, everything was A-OK. Now... I don't know what I'll be teaching next year, where I'll be teaching (this could affect where I live, for shit's sake!), or at what percentage. It's like my foundation's just slipped beneath me into the mud.

I'm sure everything'll be OK. Things always seem to go a certain way for a reason, and you can't get to where you're going without taking every step, good and bad. For now, though, it feels pretty rotten.