Into the Orange and Black

It has happened. I have a job. This fall I will be teaching Algebra and Geometry to mostly freshmen at Oregon High School. (Oregon is a city just south of Madison, WI, for those of you who didn't know. I lived in Madison 2 or 3 years before I knew that such a place existed, so don't feel like you should know...)

It is all fun and exciting, but after the initial flattery of being offered a job, I'm back to feeling like life is as it has been for the past 22 years. But in a couple weeks I will be signing a contract and learning about my benefits and getting keys to a school and room that will be mine. At that point I expect I will have a better understanding that life has indeed changed. That I am truly an adult now. And that I will be solely responsible for the acquisition of math knowledge for a select group of students. A new adventure it is.

My school colors are orange and black. I do not recall what my mascot is, probably some sort of cat. (Of course, once a Badger, always a Badger...) Orange and black are such awful colors. I was majorly involved in my high school: choir, band, forensics, theatre, sports, even a bit of school government. I loved being at football games and dressing from head to toe in purple and gold and painting my fingernails purple and gold and making hair ribbons that were purple and gold. My high school's number one enemy was the Plymouth Panthers -- school colors: orange and black. My dad went to the same high school I did, so he knows the evil of orange and black as well. My mom went to a different high school whose colors were red and black, but their enemy school had orange and black as colors, so she knows they are evil too. But now I have to embrace them. The good news is I like wearing black. And some fashionable things can be done with orange. I think I'll get used to it :)