Last week when I was absent from school, I received a phone call from the same substitute who had gotten me into so much trouble before. She was my substitute again, and she couldn't find some of the materials I had asked her to use. At the time she had woken me up, and I didn't realize that it was the same woman who was responsible for ending my career. Once I had woken up for the day, I looked at my email, and it turns out that she was the same woman. It really made me mad, that the principal had not taken it upon himself to make sure that she wasn't my substitute ever again. He said that he was going to do everything that he could, to help me get over what had happened. Not only was she my substitute again, but she was a substitute on the same day of the week, so she had all of those kids she showed the inappropriate video too. I was sick about it all day. And it still makes me angry. Just this week when I was teaching my students, the ones who had her last week, I realized that she had taught my fifth graders, the third grade lesson. She is not even competent enough to get basic instructions right.

The whole matter of the video tape is not over. I had been suspended for a week directly after the incident. On my last paycheck I had the money I would have earned that week, deducted from my paycheck. I thought that would be it. But yesterday when I received my paycheck, there was more money taken out. I called the woman from human resources in charge of payroll, and she said that she was instructed to take money out for the 8 days I was suspended. The time span I was gone was 8 days, but the amount of days I was supposed to work during that time, was only 4. So they took out twice as much money as they were supposed to. I emailed the director of human resources, but she has not emailed me back. I have this feeling that I will be screwed with this. To make matters a little worse, I was really county on that paycheck, and now I have $32 to my name, and I have over $200 worth of bills to pay. I won't get paid for another 2 weeks.
If I could rewind my life a few years, I just might. I would like to go back to when it was time to choose a major, or further back, to the time where it was my chance to start playing on a sports team in grade school. I wish I would have felt more self confident back then. I want to blame my parents, but what is the use, everyone blames their parents. You can't rewind time. My major may have also been chosen because of a lack of self confidence as well. I didn't think I was smart enough, and I knew I wasn't bad at art. Who knows what I could have accomplished. I talk like my life if over. At the moment, its hard to think two weeks in advance, let alone two months in advance, let alone two years in advance. I feel really lost right now. I feel like I am standing still and everyone is racing off in front of me. This weekend I will be attending my niece's first birthday party, and my friends wedding. Two examples of lives changing. My best friend had a baby two weeks ago. She seems happy, and tired at the same time. I don't even know when a baby is going to fit into my life. I want one, I do, but having one right now would be an unfortunate event. I am scared that I'm going to turn 30 and not be any closer to having a family.

There are a few good things in life right now. One of them is the meal group I have been attending. I signed up for a co-ed meal group. What's the harm in meeting a few men my age. But when I got to the first meeting, I realized that almost every 23 year old girl wanted a co-ed meal group. Therefore, my meal group consisted of 13 girls. All of whom were around 23 years old. By the end of the meal group, we were down to 5 girls, all of them single. These girls turned out to be just what I needed. I enjoy seeing them every Tuesday. As a part of being in a meal group, we also volunteered at a nursing home once a month. My favorite parr of that was when we went there on my birthday, and the volunteer coordinator gave me a bunch of balloons and a plate of hard chocolate chip cookies. It is a floor of alzheimer patients who were mostly women. When it was time for them to sing Happy Birthday to me, a woman named Sylvia said, "Who's birthday is it?" And they said,"April's" pointing to me. Sylvia says, "Who's April". And they point to me again. Sylvia yells, "Oh HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" The funnier part is that she repeated the conversation again two minutes later because she had already forgotten who I was. Then there is a woman named Jane who always calls me a "Killjoy". I'm not making this stuff up.