Yup.
I'm blogging from Aspen, Colorado.
Spiffy.
A lot has happened this week and I'm exhausted, but I took the time to hop over the mountains to visit Aspen. It's been almost 11 years since I've been here. I've driven all over and walked through the downtown. I had lunch at La Cantina, very good Mexican food (with a British waitress). It really is a beautiful town and the streets are easy to navigate and wide (don't always find that in mountain towns) and it's clean and friendly.
Warning: Beware the skiers and snowboarders - they'll run you over in their rush to hit the slopes. They don't care that you're in a car and they're on foot.
So I guess you might want to know what happened at the job fair? Well I only went to the first day of the fair. My first interview went really well and lasted for almost an hour. Wonderful lady interviewed me, she'll be the superintendent next year. She wanted me to come back and talk to her in the afternoon so I agreed to do that.
I spent the rest of the morning wandering around the fair, dropping off resumes and shaking hands, getting my name out there. I had a second interview at 10am with a funny British man who's the principal of high school in another town. That interview was ok. It's always hard to read Englishmen. Ah well.
So that afternoon I went back to meet with the lady from school 1 and she offered me a job, teaching middle school (5-8) technology. I said I'd really like to come look at the town first and she said she'd really like me to see the school. So, I left that afternoon and drove down to Denver and over the mountains to a little town of 1500 people, almost two hours from any good-sized town. I got there just before dark, so I didn't see much.
Friday morning I got up and drove around the town a bit and then met with the lady at the school. Beautiful school, built in... 2006 I think she said. It's not very large, just 300 students, but a beautiful building. And the technology they have... Unbelievable. 300 students, 200 computers. Amazing. The school is up on a hill and has a 360 degree view of the mountains and every classroom has big windows with that view. That'd be tough to see every day, huh?
I won't go into all the details, but I will tell you she made it very, VERY hard to say no and she gave me two weeks to think it over. There are two reasons I'm hesitating:
1. It's very rural, 2 hours from good-sized towns.
2. It's middle school and I really was looking for elementary.
So... I'm making a positives and negatives list.
Negatives:
*Very rural
*Not my first choice in age groups
Positives:
*Amazing school facility
*Technology support team to manage computer labs
*Working closely with other teachers to integrate the curriculum with technology
*Beautiful area, completely surrounded by mountains
*Lots of wildlife - eagles, moose, deer, elk, mountain goats, rocky mountain sheep, mountain lions, bears...
*Wonderful future superintendent (who promised to find a wonderful principal - she's the current principal but has been promoted)
*Climate is similar to where I live now, but not as cold during the winter and not as hot during the summer, plus more snow!
Hmmm positives seems to be winning, eh? Well, I still need to look at the money vs cost of living, though I'd be making quite a bit it is extremely expensive to live there. I'm going to call the school district Monday morning to see what my actual paychecks will be and do some research about apartments and stuff. From what I saw in the newspaper they'll be double what I'm paying now.
Oofda.
So much to think about.
HUGE decision incoming.