To Memphis we Go!

It is official the Maynard Family will soon be leaving our lovely Navajo Nation for the big city.  My beautiful wife has signed a contract with Green Dot, a charter school organization.  She will be a Dean of Students at Woodale Middle School, a school that the charter school is taking over.  We will be moving as soon as her contract ends with Pinon.  I am very excited for this new chapter in our lives.

I have been diligently job hunting.  I have filled out over 50 applications and I have prepared to fill out several more.  I have applied to nearby jobs in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas.  I have also started packing up my classroom.  It is very surreal in a way, leaving a place that has been such a major part of our family.  My wife and I met and started our family here.  This is perhaps the first place since Oregon that has truly felt like home.

Before we decided on Memphis I had filled out over 50 applications for jobs all over the country including North Carolina, Oregon, Texas (These jobs were close to where my brother Keith used to live), Utah, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Colorado, California, Washington, Maryland, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Virginia.  I was a finalist for a position in North Carolina that would have only have been about a half hour from my sister's house.  I have since contacted them and told them that I can no longer pursue the opportunity.  Their school district is about 11 hours from Memphis.

The Out Here in Pinon Blog has, in many ways, been an electronic journal to talk about my time here.  Some years I have barely used it and other years I might have over used it.  Soon I will sign off.  Soon this page will be just a place to come and reminisce.

Who knows what I will do in Memphis?  I could teach History, Spanish, or English as a Second Language.  I could teach at the elementary or secondary level.  My mother-in-law has hinted that I should go to Graduate School.  No matter what happens one thing is clear, this moment is a cross roads in my life.

I am hopeful that I will here some good news soon.