After the tortures of middle school I started playing football as a freshman. Remember the dorky and overweight thing? It hadn't worn off yet. I ran the 40 yard dash in a speedy 6.2 seconds. After some hard work I had the chance to play at TTU for a couple of years.
I graduated with a BS in secondary education with emphasis in English. I got my first couple of teaching gigs. One as a long term sub in 6th grade MATH (of all things)! The other was were my true education as a teacher began, Dry Valley Alternative School. I got a crash course in student management techniques. This was a great time in my life because of my soon to be marriage and the excitement of having a real job!
Marriage has got to be the best part of my life! My wife is a God-sent-blessing! We were wed on March 1, 2008. Got an apartment and I kept working. I floated here and there; between swinging a hammer, teaching and working at church, I continued to fall in deep love with my wife. The next big thing to happen was Joab.
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| Joab resting on his freshly killed stuff giraffe. |
It finally happened. Every teacher's dream: that first classroom. Mine was in White County High School in Sparta, TN for ONE short year! Not to completely bash them, but it was terrible. You got to understand: I was in an alternative school where students were disciplined for looking at someone the wrong way. At WCHS nobody was punished. I had kids blatantly tell me"No," curse at me, graffiti my white board, dip in class, not come to school (which is some how my fault), carry lighters and knives unchecked, discharge fire extinguishers, fight, try to fight a teacher (thankfully that wasn't me!), and WERE NEVER PUNISHED! Ok, that's enough venting. But you can imagine my dismay as a first year teacher trying to get a grasp on all that. Well, they told me I wasn't going to be rehired. No problem (honestly it hurt at first, but now I'm so thankful God drew me out of that environment)... except we had just bought our house.
It's a nice house, too. We really worked hard on it to make it sweet on the inside. We were sad to leave, but we finally ended up in a church that we really love. But it was a difficult trade off. My difficulties lied in my new job at Oakdale School. I had to coach football (which I no longer had a passion for) and teach 6-8 grades. The main difficulties for Katie were found in living with my parents. As all this drama unfolded in our lives we were well cared for by our church. It helped us stay sane and focused on Christ. They also helped us make a difficult decision.
I was faced with either long unpaid hours of coaching with ungodly men, or not having a job. I chose the later, and I was jobless again. After long hours of putting in applications I ended up landing an EXCELLENT job here in Athens, TN. And it was in the nick of time, too, because we found out we were PREGNANT! We hurried to finish improvements on our house and found some great renters so we could move out of Mom and Dad's spare'oom.
I tried my darnedest to find a small affordable house in Athens so I didn't have to commute. But after some failure in that (and some excellent counsel) I found an apartment. We moved, then Alex Kate moved out, then in again. We love her so much! I didn't know this type of love until she showed up.
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