Our once rural little town has experienced a massive growth spurt in the last few years. Many of the fields and pastures have been turned into single-family and high-density housing subdivisions, and the traffic on roads not built for the high volume of cars is a nightmare. Housing is still cheap enough here that we have become even more of a bedroom community for those escaping from The Big City prices or coming here from other states (I see license plates from all over the country). When we first moved here, rush hour was four cars at a stoplight. Now the steady stream of vehicles in and out of town is never-ending on a street system that was not designed for being efficient at such a high volume.
With all the new housing comes a greater need for schools. A new junior high is in the works and a new high school has now been completed, and with it comes a new seminary. And with a new seminary comes the opportunity for a new administrative assistant: me.
I admit I wrangled myself into position for that job out of a mixture of both ambition and a desire for adventure. My FTE status is based on seminary enrollment numbers, and although I have been working at two seminaries for the least eighteen months, neither seminary has the enrollment numbers to make me full-time (they don't add the enrollment numbers together, unfortunately). The new seminary is siphoning off enrollment from two of the other seminaries, one of which is my original seminary, making numbers even lower and reducing hours for the admin assistant, Darlene, who actually likes the reduced hours. Because most of the growth is located within the boundaries of the new high school, I figure that enrollment at the new seminary will grow enough within a few years to give me full-time status. The bonus is the thrill of helping to start a new program and culture with a new faculty and student body.
There were some small politics involved, so skip this paragraph if that doesn't interest you. I can't remember if I ever wrote about this, but when I was originally hired five years ago, I was hired for the largest of the seminaries in the valley, which was a full-time position. Another administrative assistant, Jenie, was hired for the other seminary, which was a part-time position. Unfortunately, Jenie was a cousin by marriage to the then new principal, Griff, and HR didn't like that close of a relationship between administrators of credit cards, money and budgets. Within a couple days of being hired, I got a call from the region director who asked if I would be willing to switch seminaries, and if I wasn't, that was fine except they would then need to un-hire the new admin assistant and find someone else. I felt incredibly upset that I had been put in that position. If I wanted to keep my full-time status, I would know I had put Jenie out of a job, and I had already met her and really liked her; but by switching, I was being asked to give up the money and benefits of a full-time position. It was unfair to put me in that position, but I ended up agreeing to switch jobs. In the end, it worked out very well for me in so many ways, and I have never held a grudge against Jenie, who really is one of the best people you will ever meet. I also managed very early on to forgive the region director, Shane, for putting me in that position, which is good because he will be my new principal. But I do feel like I had every right to argue for myself as admin assistant at the new seminary after five years (and one-and-a-half years of working at two seminaries) even though Jenie's job will drop from full-time to part-time because of the drop in enrollment at her seminary. She made the choice to stay at the seminary for the time being, but enrollment at that seminary may never recover enough to grant her full-time status again. I only ever talked about this in confidence to my principals because, over the years, I never wanted to create bad feelings and drama with faculty members, and I don't have any anger about it anyway. I was the one who made the choice, however unfair I felt it was at the time to force me to make that choice, but I have been very blessed with the outcome. My principals, who had most of the say in the personnel shuffling that went on when planning to staff the new building, were quietly rooting for me to get the place at the new seminary, and neither of the other two admin assistants were fighting for that position very hard. Politics talk ended.
The former region director, Shane, who, before being region director was a teacher and principal for twenty years, has been asked to come in as an experienced principal to open the new seminary before he retires. I have worked with Denise, one of the new teachers, for several years at my original seminary, and have known her for fourteen. The other one, Jason, is a Millennial I have spoken to on occasion but never worked with. He's super intelligent, absolutely dedicated to teaching the gospel to young people, very open about his feelings, and very smart with technology. Shane, Denise, and Jason know each other very well and know all the same people and have even vacationed with each others' families, so they have a lot to say to each other, which became apparent during a recent overnight faculty retreat we took to southern Idaho. I went for hours at a time without having anything to contribute to the conversation, and I felt a little awkward much of the time, like I was back in high school and the cool kids were having a great time and had no malice towards me but simply forgot I was with them. Things got a little more awkward because of the multiple times Jason would wax poetic in singing the praises of the admin assistant I originally switched with (Jenie), and with whom he has worked for the last five years. I do not begrudge any praise ever to Jenie, who really is that awesome, but I couldn't figure out if Jason was just being a little insensitive to my feelings by going on and on and on about how great she is or if he really did want me to understand that I will never be to him and the job what Jenie is. We will see how I fit in to that dynamic over time. When two new teachers are added in a year, that will also alter the group dynamic. It will be interesting. An adventure.
It was a welcome relief when, feeling a little insecure after that faculty retreat, I went to my other seminary to meet up for some work with my other principal, Trent, and, as soon as I walked in the door, he shouted, "Eva! How are you! I missed you! How's your summer? It's so good to see you!" and was genuinely glad to see me and have a nice, catch-up conversation before getting to work. I will also still be working with Tanner, for whom I have great affection, and now with Kim, who was transferred over from my original seminary after being there for twelve years, and who replaced Kristine (who was transferred to Jenie's seminary, and with whom I very much enjoyed working). Kim and I are old friends, and the three of them, Trent, Tanner, and Kim are so fun and easy to work with that working at that seminary is always going to be thoroughly enjoyable.
In other news, Elannah and her husband moved just a couple weeks ago to her in-laws' basement (fortunately, it's a huge house, so they have a huge basement) in order to save money toward a down payment on their own future house. Elannah works with my other daughter, Gabrielle, and now one of my other sons-in-law, Sophia's husband Matt, at Adobe (the company that operates Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) and is putting her husband through commercial flight school. Anyway, they are now living close enough to us that Elannah and I can take quick shopping trips together again without one of us having to drive a long way to meet up. Last Saturday, she and I went to Chinatown in The Big City, which is not an entire neighborhood like in some cities but just a little mall with a massive grocery store selling Asian foods and products and some restaurants. We enjoyed shopping through the store and then grabbing some fish cakes, soup, and tteokbokki at a little Korean restaurant. And, of course, chatting.
Gabrielle and Raine finally got Raine's medical discharge date for late September/early October, and that is a huge relief after over eighteen months of what was supposed to be a one-year deployment. They just moved into a sweet and quirky little 1930s cottage they are purchasing that somehow manages to pack four bedrooms into a very small footprint but has been updated enough to be modern and usable. Raine took some leave to come and help with the move before heading back to Colorado, and they will both be so glad to finally be together again in a couple months.
I had to dig out my high school yearbook to get a scan of my graduation photo as part of the new seminary faculty's introduction of themselves to the new student body. I don't have an original copy of that picture (I gave away the only copy I had), so it's really pixelated. Old technology for old people.
Look how young and cute I was! Sad how things change, although I would not give up the incredible life I have had with all it's weight gains and losses (well, I would give up the weight gain for sure), scars, pains, and triumphs. It would probably be very dangerous if we aged backward. Can you imagine going from old, saggy, and in pain every time you sneeze wrong to young, vibrant, and able to eat anything without gaining weight? While youth is wasted on the young, it would be far worse to know better with an older mind in a young body. One would hope wisdom would prevail, but one is probably too optimistic.
I remember being in my high school's art room where the art teacher took this picture. I suddenly realized I did not have a senior photo and the deadline for that section was coming up. I even developed the film myself, which was a skill I was happy to learn back then but is now almost obsolete.
For some reason, the art teacher, who was the yearbook advisor, asked me to be the editor-in-chief of the yearbook even though I had absolutely no experience with putting together a yearbook, and I was naive enough to agree. I also had to be the layout editor because I didn't have anyone else to do it (small school woes), and back in those days, you had to draw everything out with graph paper and rulers. Oh, the deadlines! They were constant! I pretty much worked a full time job getting that thing to the publishers. The one photographer I had hated my guts and quit halfway through, so I ended up becoming chief photographer and photo developer as well. I wish I could say I was brilliant at it from the start and put together a yearbook no one could have guessed came from a rookie, but what really happened was that I would have been very good at it about three years later. The yearbook was pretty crap.
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| Me, trying not to drown in 1989 before I graduated in 1990. |
