2014 went by rather quick, as I transitioned from student teaching in Orange County to teaching full time in Las Vegas.
Perhaps a metaphor for my transition into Las Vegas would be what happened when I eventually moved there. On the way to Barstow, I made a pit stop, as my car eventually makes some weird noises and smoke starts coming out of it. The car stops in the middle of the road unable to start again. A random stranger helps me push it into a Starbucks parking lot. My car is unable to start so I call a local tow company. They diagnose the problem, telling me that the gasket blew out as a result of the car overheating. I panicked when he tells me it would take the car a week to fix. I obviously didn’t have a week (I had to sign my lease that day and my contract for Clarke County the day after). He tells me the approximate cost is $2000, which I would argue is only slightly less than the value of my car. I freak out, not entirely sure what to do. Desperate, I walk across the street and buy a new used car, eventually towing that old damaged car back to Orange County. That perfectly sums up my transition to Vegas, rather abrupt, and painful as can be.
2014 was also the year of my last long relationship, which lasted roughly 9 months before fizzling out because of long distance. We had so much fun at the beginning, and I thought there was great potential, but the lack of effort on the other side eventually told me it wasn’t worth it and caused me to eventually end the relationship. I don’t like people that are wishy-washy, and are not going to put in the effort to make things work. Sadly, this resulted in me being very depressed in Las Vegas at the offset because of this breakup.
On the flip side, there were some pros of the year. Going from being under the wing of a master teacher to having my own classroom, implementing my own lesson plans, and having my own set of students, 2014 was a great year for my professional growth and development though. My students at Santiago were challenging indeed, mostly because of the lack of an apparent age difference between me and them. With my Cram students it’s been slightly easier due to me being farther in age from them, and them not knowing me as the “student teacher”. Still, despite the challenges working in the inner-city, that year did create some improvements in me. If Malcolm Gladwell is to believed, it will take me several years to truly “master” my personal teaching strategies.
It definitely was both a cultural shift and a hard transition from my moving from Orange County to Los Vegas. Often referred to as the “City of sin”, people told me there that it is really hard to make long-lasting friends due to the transient environment of the city (people come and go). Eventually I was able to make some new friends I felt comfortable around, but it took me towards the end of the year for me to be able to do so (by going to Meetups and meeting strangers firsthand).
Ironically enough, right after my breakup I ran a red light and destroyed the car I just bought within the span of a couple months, which eventually led to buying of my 2015 Ford Fiesta.
2014 was good in some ways (new job, new life), but also depressing in some (breakup, car blowing up). For my life though, there was only one room to move, forwards and never go back to that tragic experience again.
The top movie of the year was Transformers: Age of Extinction. Yuck. The number one song of 2014 was “Happy”. Double yuck, since that year was far from happy.
